Nar Shaddaa was the largest moon that orbited Nal Hutta, the Hutt homeworld, and the home to many immoral activities over Star Wars history. Though it was nicknamed the “little Coruscant”, suggesting a comparable environment to the primarily civilized and crime-controlled metropolitan government center, the planet was infested with misdeed, filth, slavery and oppression throughout its surface, and served as a base of operations for many crime syndicates, including Hutts, Exchange, Czerka, and many others as the years progressed. While the moon teems with life, Nar Shadaa carried with it a sense of desolation and hopelessness, as its people were either of a vile and corrupted stock, or of unfortunate circumstances which lead them to an unsavory lifestyle.

Civilisation and History

When the Hutts fled from their polluted former homeworld of Varl, they took control of Nal Hutta, and by extension, Nar Shaddaa, by collecting on monumental debts from the native Evocii and evicting their entire civilization. After the Hutts had taken control of the planet, the Evocii were banished to Nar Shaddaa, where they were left to their own devices for several years. In the near future, however, the Hutts annexed Nar Shaddaa, and began forcing the Evocii to build on its surface a massive ecumenopolis, the construction of which utilised every living Evocii as slave labour, and would take centuries to complete. Once the surface of the moon had been completely urbanised, the Evocii’s work was complete, and they were considered free. The Republic established a vital trade route through the system, and Nar Shaddaa quickly became a rival to Coruscant in economic importance, and continued to grow. As the population grew and need for new housing arose, massive skyscrapers were built higher into the upper atmosphere, giving Nar Shadaa one of its many nicknames, “the vertical city.”

In 24,000 BBY, Nar Shaddaa’s history took a drastic turn for the worse when the Republic trade lanes shifted, removing the system from trade importance and making it obsolete. Due to the fact that Republic law had all but abandoned the Smuggler’s moon, the Hutts established their own personal legal system, again banishing the Evocii, but now to the lower levels of the city, where they would eventually devolve into insalubrious beasts of a savage nature due to various corruptive technologies in the undercity. The moon remained sustained, however, by an alliance between the Hutts and the Honorable Union of Desevro & Tion, thus allowing for continued prosperity, though not as dramatic as it had been during their years with the Republic. It was in this way that Nar Shaddaa lasted through the Tionese War.

Following the close of the Tionese War in 23,900 BBY, Nar Shaddaa began to attract off-world attention from less reputable members of the galaxy, and over time gained the reputation of being the “Smuggler’s moon”, a center for illegal activities and syndicates who sought to gain a profit by doing activities that were against most official restraints in the rest of the galaxy, using planetary shields to make the moon a safe haven for individuals attempting to buy or sell illicit goods, or make a career in the world of interstellar crime. With the large population clogging every bit of open space available, it was easy to elude others on the planet by disappearing into the ever-present crowd of citizens. In 3,951 BBY, the Jedi Exile visited Nar Shaddaa in search of a former Jedi Master, Zez Kai Ell, who was using the immense amount of life on the moon to cloak his presence in the Force. During her time on the Smuggler’s moon, the Exile would all but remove the Exchange syndicate’s influence by destroying the Yacht of the organisation’s boss: Goto. She also helped improve living conditions in the refugee sector of the moon, and brought hope to innocent victims of the Mandalorian War and Jedi Civil War who had been left on the moon without homes, and also made an ally out of local bounty huntress, Mira.

Rise of the Galactic Empire

In the years before the Galactic Civil War, Nar Shaddaa was home to several illustrious figures in Star Wars history, including the Brotherhood of Darkness Sith faction, Pa'lowick Aneesa Dym, and Han Solo. As the Empire began its inevitable rise to power, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, Galen Marek, would journey to the moon to discover and ask for the assistance of Jedi Master Rahm Kota in defeating the Empire by creating a Rebel Alliance, and the two escaped the planet after fighting off a small contingent of Imperial Stormtroopers. After the Battle of Yavin, Kyle Katarn visited the Smuggler’s Moon to discover Imperial plans for a Dark Trooper project, but already had a price placed on his head, which lead to fighting in the streets before he could escape.

The Yuuzhan Vong Empire

When the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong, a species despising technological advancement in the form of manufacturing, came to the galaxy, Nar Shaddaa was one of their victims, suffering an orbital bombardment that left most of its citizens dead, and the entire urban metropolis reduced to rubble. The mutated Evocii managed to survive the bombardment, as they lived in the undercity and did not inhabit the upper, urbanised levels, which had suffered the most damage. They did not survive for long, however: as the Vong began to populate the system with their warships and refurbish the landscape with their organic construction, deadly strains of foreign bacteria killed off any and all survivors of the bombardment. The bodies were then buried and absorbed into the soil of ground zero, along with all the remaining rubble. After the surface was again barren, it was Vongformed, or biologically engineered with technological structures that were completely organic. Thus did Nar Shaddaa, along with the rest of the Hutt Empire, all but disintegrate with the rise of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire.

When the Vong were defeated, it is speculated that they abandoned Hutt space, including Nar Shaddaa. It again began occupying the small amount of smugglers and criminals that had survived the War to its surface, though it is unknown if the Hutts ever recovered enough to reclaim the moon as their own. During the Second Galactic Civil War, Nar Shaddaa and Nal Hutta aligned themselves with the Confederation, though the Hutts did not immediately side with any one part of the conflict. They would eventually join the battle on the side of the Confederation, however.