'Star Wars' Guidebook: Eriadu

Star Wars

Jul 31

The Star Wars galaxy consists of billions of stars and millions of inhabited worlds. Some of them are birthplaces of certain characters, locations of temporary refuge, or sites of exchange of certain goods and services, but some of these worlds hold a greater importance for the overall story of Star Wars. One of these worlds is Eriadu.

General Information

Location

Eriadu was located in the Eriadu star system, and once had an inhabitable moon. Eriadu could be found in the Outer Rim of the galaxy in the galactic southeast, and formed part of a region known as Greater Seswenna, and was located within the Seswenna sector itself.

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Landscape

Eriadu’s landscape changed drastically over the centuries. Originally a rugged wilderness, a great deal of valuable lommite ore sat in the ground and was of interest to the original settlers to help them support their colonization. Heavily forested and mountainous, and crossed by notable rivers like the Orrineswa, Eriadu later saw extensive strip-mining and pollution as industrial operations increased. Eriadu’s environmental situation was likely later cleaned up under Wilhuff Tarkin’s leadership, and the Tarkin family also held vast tracts of natural terrain on Eriadu which they refused to develop. This was not out of any environmentalistic streak, but to preserve a rugged slice of the old Eriadu with which to forge future generations of the family.

Population and Society

Eriadu was a world settled mostly by humans, with no native populations beyond the world’s existing animal life. Over time, other groups came to call the world home, perhaps most notably Rodians, though this is uncertain. Eriadu society was egalitarian and generally industrious, valuing strength and a hard work ethic with a reputation as good hunters. Five notable families, the Tarkins among them, held a large amount of political power on the planet by the time of the High Republic through the planet’s governing body known as the Quintad. The Tarkins alone later held the most power by the time of the Prequel Trilogy, and the status of the Quintad was uncertain.

Major Settlements and Landmarks

Eriadu City

As the capital of Eriadu, this city had a great deal of importance. During the High Republic era, it accepted spillover of Republic Defense Coalition forces who were usually found near neighboring Bri-Phrang City. It became the epicenter of the great Battle of Eriadu, alongside its sister city, which saw the end of the Nihil threat though with a great deal of damage. The capital was likely later rebuilt under Tarkin leadership.

Bri-Phrang City

Known as something of a dark mirror to nearby Eriadu City, Bri-Phrang was much more rough and tumble, with an apparent criminal element and more worn buildings. During the High Republic though, it was an epicenter of activity for the Jedi and the RDC in their operations against the Nihil. It was also home to a massive geothermal power plant that supplied both Bri-Phrang and Eriadu City. It was damaged, probably during the Great Hyperspace Disaster, and the Nihil refused to allow the locals to fix it. The Battle of Eriadu demanded the plant be protected and steadied, a task undertaken by some of the Jedi. Fortunately, disaster was averted. Bri-Phrang’s fate after the High Republic era is uncertain, but due to its proximity to Eriadu City, and the hard line the Tarkin family took in later years, it may be that the vibrant but rough settlement was absorbed by the capital and significantly changed.

Raven’s Peak

The Raven’s Peak was an old stronghold built into the mountains north of Eriadu City. During the era of the High Republic, its role was specifically as a command bunker, and it seemed to be freely accessible to all members of the Quintad, Eriadu’s five leading families. It had extensive connections to planetary security and surveillance at this time, and these connections doubtlessly endured in future decades after the Nihil threat had faded.

It seems with time, that the Tarkin family came to take full control of the bunker, as it was later claimed as Wilhuff Tarkin’s private and personal compound on the planet’s surface. It later became an Imperial facility as part of Wilhuff’s expanding powerbase, and was the site of a critical conference between Wilhuff and other Imperial leaders such as Director Orson Krennic and Doctor Royce Hemlock. The facility was significantly damaged when bombs set by Saw Gerrera and a small infiltration team exploded, but no one at the conference was killed, and a parallel infiltration attempt by the Bad Batch took most of the subsequent heat from the scrambling security forces.

Carrion Plateau

The Carrion Plateau was the aforementioned portion of natural terrain in the possession of the Tarkin family for centuries. While some tried to make them give up the land for resource development, the Tarkins always dealt with them brutally, and the region was generally left to them after a certain point. The plateau had a mix of terrains, but was generally humid, with dense jungles and forested areas alongside rocky terrain. A notable site was the Carrion Spike, a protrusion of volcanic glass set amidst jagged rocks located at the center of a savannah biome found within the Plateau. That region was a site of testing for the Tarkin family, with no small number of their ancestors having fallen to the region’s dangers by the time of Wilhuff Tarkin. However, with brutal skill, he was able to remove a threat posed by local animals, fully defeating the trial which hadn’t been accomplished by anyone before him.

Notable Fauna

Eriadu was once a very hostile planet, full of wildlife and rugged terrain that claimed many lives during the planet’s colonization and in the decades and centuries that followed. Over time, much of this wild terrain was conquered, but as mentioned earlier, one of the few intact sections of this old nature was the Carrion Plateau. In this region, there was one particularly dangerous species of animal: the veermok.

A primate-like creature with four long limbs, clawed hands and an aggressive mindset, those that lived on Eriadu had developed a pack society, leading to both cooperation and competition. The Tarkins frequently encountered veermoks over the centuries of their ownership of the Plateau, hunting them, competing with them over kills and resources, or avoiding them due to their pack numbers. Other notable creatures include a species of fierce felines, poisonous reptiles, venomous insects and flesh-eating crustaceans.

History

After the defeat of the Sith and the rise of the Galactic Republic, Eriadu was one of many worlds that Core-ward populations expanded to over the following centuries. The natural planet that they found was rich in mineral wealth, lommite ore, and was soon a focus of their industry. During the High Republic era, Eriadu was a planet hit hard by the rise of the Nihil. Several Emergences were destined to strike the star system, and the Tempest Runner Kassav Milliko used it to extort a vast sum from the Eriadu government. However, despite them sending him the money, and his effort to destroy the final and most devastating Emergence, his gunners missed and the projectile slammed into Eriadu’s inhabited moon. Over a billion lives were immediately lost, and the terrible event led Eriadu to swear vengeance against the Nihil. They participated in the Battle of Kur Nebula soon after and hunted down Kassav’s ship. He tried to surrender to them, but they summarily executed him, robbing the Republic of critical information but getting revenge for their slaughtered civilians.

Later, with the formation of the Stormwall, Nihil space sat quite close to Eriadu which rapidly led to it becoming an epicenter of Republic Defense Coalition activity. The Jedi also had many members active in and around the area. Over time, as the Stormwall moved ever outward, Eriadu became more and more of a frontline until suddenly, it was swallowed by the Wall and all Republic-allied forces became trapped. When the Nihil arrived, an awkward standoff began, where both sides were aware of the other’s presence, but avoided direct conflict, kept in check by the planning of RDC leadership and the Nihil’s hesitancy in handling situations without orders from up top. Meanwhile, Eriadu’s planetary leadership, including members of the Tarkin family, weighed how much support they should show the Nihil or the Republic forces out of a concern for their people. Ultimately, they chose the Republic, and when the people had finally had enough, a long-planned uprising against the Nihil began.

The Battle of Eriadu that followed was brutal, as each side swung back and forth in terms of advantage. Eriadu City and other major urban centers were ravaged by orbital bombardments as well as brutal street to street fighting. In the end, the Republic came out the victor when the Stormwall collapsed, allowing more RDC forces to come sweeping in. But it would seem that when the dust settled, Eriadu did not fully recover in the following decades. By the time of Wilhuff Tarkin’s childhood, close to 200 years later, Eriadu was not prospering and was constantly preyed upon by pirates and raiders attacking shipping and colonies. The situation on the planet was also bad, but Wilhuff made moves to change that.

As his family told him growing up, Eriadu was a Tarkin world, and if the old leading families from the era of the High Republic still existed, they had lost all of their power by this time. The Tarkins alone wielded enough to change the political fortunes of their world, but when Wilhuff became the planetary governor, he did so with a brutal edge as befit old Eriaduan traditions around seeing the world which had since been twisted to serve the modern world and politics. He instituted a strong “Eriadu first” campaign, displacing thousands who had come to Eriadu looking to make a fresh start. The Tarkins labeled these non-natives as social parasites, and allowed their supporters to commit terrible crimes while powerful friends, like the new Republic Chancellor Palpatine, ignored the situation. Ultimately, Eriadu became a celebrity world, respected and seen as a leader in the region, gaining the status it had so long sought but at the cost of thousands of lives.

During the Clone Wars, Wilhuff Tarkin entered the new Republic military, while his world remained stubbornly loyal to the Republic despite many other local worlds turning to the Separatists. In the aftermath of the conflict, Tarkin’s star rose, and so did that of Eriadu. It became an important Imperial world, and hosted a notable conference early into the reign of the Empire which decided various important matters of policy. While the meeting was attacked by proto-Partisans led by Saw Gerrera, no members of the small gathering were killed, and their policies were later implemented. Eriadu remained a key Imperial possession due to this link with Tarkin, but its fate past the early years of the Galactic Civil War remains unclear.

Appearances of Eriadu in the Canon

Eriadu has appeared across Star Wars media, to the surprise of many in some cases. It originally saw exploration in the novel Tarkin, which gave Wilhuff Tarkin a great deal of backstory while also introducing a lot of broader history and details that showed the path the world took during the years before the Clone Wars. Eriadu next made a notable appearance in Light of the Jedi, as part of the High Republic, and then, perhaps its biggest appearance to date, was featured in the Season 2 finale of The Bad Batch. While urban Eriadu was not explored, Raven’s Peak was depicted for the first time as were the natural landscapes of Eriadu. Eriadu soon became an epicentre of High Republic storytelling as Phase 3 began, with most of The High Republic Adventures (2023) being set on the world throughout the entire series run. The Star Wars Insider short fiction installments also heavily focused on Eriadu, and the world most recently appeared in Trials of the Jedi which included elements of Adventures regarding the pivotal Battle of Eriadu.

Where the planet could turn up next is a mystery, as its use in animation helps pave the way for it to appear again in some future project, be it Maul - Shadow Lord, or an installment of Tales of. Eriadu is also likely to appear in the comics and other stories in the future as it already has for a number of years between the major appearances listed above.

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