Antipose

Antipose was a terrestrial planet located in the Antipose system, a part of the Centrality sector in the Slice portion of the Outer Rim Territories. The hyperlane known as the Falko Run linked it to the Falko and Paulking systems. Antipose orbited a sun that loomed large and yellow in its skies, and a large, dark-blue celestial body was also visible from the planet and at one point occulted the star.

A world with oceans as well as several landmasses, Antipose featured a hilly terrain. The planet's wildlife included reptavians, and it was also home to various plants, such as trees, as well as large fungal growths that were either red-colored with black mottles or yellow with black or red mottles.

Following the destruction of the Pirates of Iridium in 22 BBY, the member of the group Raskar retired from piracy with a power gem—a rare artifact composed of a meteoritic mineral that could disable the deflector shields of starships—in his possession. Realizing that using the artifact in order to attack ships inevitably attracted unwanted attention to the user themselves, Raskar instead settled on Antipose, becoming the ruler of what he thought as a "modest" planet. He then organized a system of gladiatorial competitions with the power gem as the prize for the ultimate winner. Over time, many individuals sought to participate in the gladiatorial fights, with the former pirate collecting arena admissions—from both the audience and the participants—as well as percentages from all associated betting.

In 0 ABY, the smuggler Han Solo was tasked by Princess Leia Organa with finding and obtaining a power gem in order to help the Rebel Alliance combat the new Star Dreadnought of the Sith Lord Darth Vader, the Executor. Intending to begin the search for the legendary gems in the galactic underworld, Solo and his copilot, Chewbacca, traveled in their light freighter, the Millennium Falcon, to the Tharin sector shadowport Junkfort Station. There, an alien—who, unbeknownst to Solo and Chewbacca, was an agent for Raskar—pointed the pair to Antipose, claiming he had seen a power gem there.

Traveling to Antipose aboard the Falcon, Solo and Chewbacca set the ship down outside the planet's only city, with Solo noting that the world reminded him of many others they had visited during their smuggling career. Exiting the Falcon, Solo eyed an attractive alien before he and Chewbacca were confronted by a trio of individuals who, being interested in acquiring the power gem themselves, attempted to intimidate any new potential contestants into leaving the planet.

Subtly preparing for a lightfight, Solo and Chewbacca positioned themselves so that they would have the three contestants in a crossfire, with Solo maneuvering so that Antipose's sun would be in his opponent's eyes. At that moment, Raskar's enforcer Mystra arrived at the landing field on a floater, interrupting the confrontation and ordering that the trio harassing Solo and Chewbacca leave the planet. Instructing the two smugglers onto the floater, Mystra took them to Antipose's city, where she briefly showed the pair the Antipose Arena before traveling to Raskar's villa.

At his residence, Raskar was engaged in a fencing sparring session with a Duelist Elite training droid. Intent on motivating Solo to enter the gladiatorial contest in the arena, Raskar arranged a private demonstration of the power gem during which he used the artifact to shatter a force field. The ex-pirate then explained to Solo his reason for offering to part with the gem as well as his business model on Antipose. Since the crime lord Jabba the Hutt had placed a high bounty on Solo that Raskar was interested in collecting, he then offered to let the smuggler participate in the gladiatorial fights for the power gem for free. Formulating a plan to obtain a power gem that did not involve fighting in the arena at all, Solo agreed on the condition that his mighty Wookiee companion be allowed to fight on his behalf instead.

After Solo and Chewbacca left the villa, they were briefly confronted by Mystra, who unsuccessfully attempted to intimidate Solo into not trying to game the system of the gladiatorial contests. The enforcer then continued observing the two smugglers from a distance while Solo obtained directions to the training grounds of a hulking alien gladiator who was the leading contender for the power gem. Solo then convinced Chewbacca to instigate a brawl with the gladiator at the very same site, in violation of the planetary rule prohibiting any fighting outside of the arena. The Human smuggler used the distraction provided by the massing crowd of onlookers to slip away unnoticed while Raskar and Mystra used floaters to commence a search for him, as the ex-pirate wished to punish Solo for cheating him out of his profits from the fight.

Sneaking into Raskar's villa, Solo proceeded to slice his way into the chamber where the power gem was being kept. He also picked up Raskar's fencing sword and thus activated the ex-pirate's training droid, who proceeded to attack Solo. The latter maneuvered the droid into the path of the destructive energy beams protecting the power gem. Meanwhile, Raskar had been alerted to Solo's break-in at the power gem chamber and the firing of the beams, and he therefore assumed that the smuggler had been killed. By the time Raskar and Mystra arrived at the villa, Solo had used a portable scanner to determine that the potency of the artifact's effect on shields was gradually diminishing and the gem was only still good for one proper use against a starship.

Confronting Raskar about his deception, Solo persuaded the ex-pirate out of simply killing him in order to prevent the contestants of the gladiatorial fights from learning about it. The smuggler convinced Raskar to declare Chewbacca the ultimate winner of the competition, since the Rebel Alliance was at that point only interested in using the power gem once anyway and therefore the two smugglers had no interest in publicly revealing Raskar's deception. After Solo subsequently informed Chewbacca that their plan had worked and that he no longer needed to prolong the fight as a distraction, the tired and irritated Wookiee proceeded to promptly defeat his opponent. Receiving the power gem from Raskar, the pair then departed Antipose aboard the Falcon, returning to the Alliance base on the Gordian Reach moon Yavin 4. Raskar, on the other hand, eventually experienced financial difficulties and was forced to return to interstellar piracy.

By 0 ABY, Antipose was located relatively far from the influence sphere of the Galactic Empire. The only city on Antipose was inhabited by Basic-speaking members of various species, including the planet's ruler, the Human Raskar, and the alien Mystra. In order to safeguard Raskar's source of income, combat in the city and its vicinity was only allowed in the gladiatorial arena, with Mystra enforcing the rule and at one point ordering lawbreakers to depart the planet.

Antipose was the site of a single city that consisted of stone buildings. The largest villa in the settlement was owned by the ex-pirate Raskar. He also owned the Antipose Arena, a large gladiatorial arena located elsewhere in the city; and a starship landing field was situated on the city's outskirts.

The planet on which Raskar hosted the gladiatorial competitions for the power gem was introduced in "The Power Gem," a comic story written by Archie Goodwin, penciled by Al Williamson, and published between July 26 and October 3, 1982 as part of the daily Star Wars comic strip distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate to major American and Canadian newspapers from 1979 to 1984.

The planet remained unnamed until 2009, when Daniel Wallace, one of the co-authors of the reference book The Essential Atlas released that year, established in his blog on StarWars.com that "Antipose," a location name included in the book and shared with the celestial bodies Antipose IX and Antipose XII that had been introduced in other Star Wars sources, referred to the planet from "The Power Gem." The Essential Atlas placed the Antipose system, and therefore the planet Antipose, in grid square U-8.

• Star Wars Scrapbook: The Essential Collection
• Star Wars Encyclopedia
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. III
• The Essential Atlas