Barab I

Barab I was a dark, murky planet in the Barab system of the Albanin sector of the Outer Rim Territories. Located along the Triellus Trade Route, the planet was largely avoided by spacers due to the fearsome natives known as the Barabel.

Description
A murky world shrouded in darkness, Barab I's star was a dim red dwarf that made the planet very dark. The planet orbited the star within less than 125 million kilometers, and the planet had a day period of sixty standard hours. During the day, the planet was irradiated with gamma, ultraviolet and infrared rays, forcing all life on the planet to delve underground or cocoon itself else it be destroyed. Therefore, all species were nocturnal and adapted to hunt or forage in the evening without the risk of radiation poisoning. Because the world's oceans and standing water evaporated during the extremely hot day period, sudden torrential downpours soaked the planet at night, forcing the natives to hunt quickly or risk being washed away.

History
While members of the Barabel species had managed to travel offplanet throughout various points in history aboard passing ships, the species did not develop its own means of space travel and largely remained on Barab I. Circa 900 BBY representatives of the Jedi Order visited the world, which was embroiled in a bloody civil war. Creating a zone of neutrality around their landing site the Jedi, led by Ithorian Jedi Master Noga-ta, managed to engage the two warring parties and end the war peacefully after thousands of years of struggle. Greatful for the Jedi intervention, the Barabel gave the Jedi their undying respect, deifying their arrival and worshiping them for generations.

Over the next few centuries, the Barabel began exporting goods from their world, while remaining largely separate from the galactic community at large. Exporting exotic fruits and ores, the planet managed to create a small economy which helped bring in tools and weapons desperately needed on the world. Not only did the Barabel use imported weapons for defense against their top predator, the fearsome durgolosk, but also for work as mercenaries and pirates.

When the Clone Wars erupted across the galaxy between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the Jedi High Council secretly dispatched one of their own members, Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, to the planet during the early stages of the war to conduct a classified mission. While the planet was not attacked during the war, it was annexed by the Galactic Empire following the end of the conflict and Governor Paro Lanto was placed in charge of the world. During this time, Planetary Safaris began sending ships to the world and poaching swiftly became a problem. The combined efforts of the Barabal and Imperial officer Osted Alater quickly put an end to the illegal hunting and the Barabel established the Alater-ka spaceport on the world in honor of their comrade.

When the New Republic liberated the world from the Imperials, several Force-sensitive Barabel joined Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's Jedi Order to help defend the Republic from the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong. During the invasion of the galaxy, Barabel Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne traveled to defend her world from the invaders, only to find and destroy a slaveship carrying a large part of the world's population. Torn at the thought that she had slaughtered her own people. Sebatyne later discovered that many of the Barabel had hidden underground as the Yuuzhan Vong ravaged their world and left it in ruin.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Republic 17: Emissaries to Malastare, Part 5
 * The Clone Wars: Wild Space
 * MedStar II: Jedi Healer
 * The Hutt Gambit
 * Rebel Dawn
 * Dark Force Rising
 * The New Jedi Order: Recovery
 * The New Jedi Order: Star by Star
 * The New Jedi Order: Dark Journey
 * The New Jedi Order: Destiny's Way
 * The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic I: Remnant
 * The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic II: Refugee
 * The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic III: Reunion
 * The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force
 * Dark Nest I: The Joiner King
 * Fate of the Jedi: Vortex
 * Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse