Arkanian Legacy

Initially created as the mobile corporate base of The Adasca BioMechanical Corporation of Arkania, better known as Adascorp, the colossal capital ship Arkanian Legacy housed up to 104,079 people and also served as a research hospital, arboretum, conservatory, one of the largest art museums in the galaxy, a university and a domed observatory that doubled as a concert venue.

Employing a skilled crew of 5,000, the Arkanian Legacy was defended by an armament of four light and 12 medium turbolaser batteries, as well as 24 starfighters and eight shuttles, not including Lord Arkoh Adasca's private vessel. In addition, various research, transport, passenger and visitor craft were usually housed aboard the Arkanian Legacy at any one time. Equipped with a navicomputer and a class 2 hyperdrive with a class 8 backup, the Arkanian Legacy could hold up to 10,000 tons of cargo, 100,000 passengers, and two years' worth of consumables.

Among its other features, the Arkanian Legacy contained a crow's nest with dozens of holoscreens, which Adasca's cybernetically-enhanced Duros assistant, Eejee Vamm, used as a workstation. From there, Vamm had access to video recordings and broadcasts from all over the galaxy, and had the ability to run retinal scans on people within those recordings. In addition, the crow's nest had access to hundreds of different security cameras within the Arkanian Legacy itself. The Arkanian Legacys hospital was a fully-outfitted unit, including quarantine care centers and extensive scientific laboratories. True to Adascorp's mission, much medical and biomechanical research was carried out on the ship, both in the laboratories and in the Arkanian Legacys multiple libraries. The center of the ship's opulent facilities was its wide-open atrium, anchored in the center by a massive fountain. The atrium connected to a series of ornately outfitted personal quarters that were often used to house important guests. For less well-appointed guests, the Arkanian Legacy also possessed its own brig, guarded by a battalion of security personnel.

First conceived of during the Great Sith War as a method for Adascorp to keep its headquarters out of harm's way, the Arkanian Legacy was initially the project of Adasca's grandfather Argaloh, and was eventually completed by Argaloh's son Alok. The Arkanian Legacy was finally launched at the ceremony where Arkoh Adasca, Alok's son and the eighth Lord of the House of Adasca, came into his inheritance as the head of Adascorp, the galaxy's largest bioengineering firm. The scion of a great industrial dynasty, Adasca became immensely popular among pureblood Arkanians as the Chief Executive Officer of Adascorp, but he had grander ambitions in mind than just being the head of a major corporation. During the time of his grandfather's stewardship of the company, a brilliant Arkanian Offshoot scientist by the name of Gorman Vandrayk had discovered how to contact and control the minds of the exogorths, a species of massive and mysterious space slug found in many disparate regions of the galaxy. Realizing the incredible destructive power of the beasts, Argaloh planned to weaponize the exogorths, but a horrified Vandrayk went on the run and took his indispensable knowledge with him.

By 3963 BBY, the galaxy had become engulfed in the Mandalorian Wars, fought between the Galactic Republic and the Mandalorian warrior clans. Remembering his grandfather's vision for the exogorths, Adasca formulated a plan that could possibly turn Adascorp into a galactic power. The company had discovered a host of dormant exogorths near the dying star Omonoth, and Adasca figured that if Adascorp could take control of the beasts, he could sell their services to the highest bidder and effectively choose the winner of the war—but, as he would retain operational control of the exogorths, whichever side he chose would be forced to pay him tribute. As grand as Adasca's ambitions were, his plan had no chance of success without Vandrayk, as Adascorp was unable to take control of the exogorths without his knowledge. Adasca made tracking Vandrayk down a high priority, and enlisted his cybernetic aide Eejee Vamm to use the observational power of the Arkanian Legacys holoscreen crow's nest to peruse the galaxy for him. Vamm eventually recognized Vandrayk from a recording on the planet Telerath, and a retinal scan confirmed the runaway scientist's identity. The Duros immediately messaged Lord Adasca, confirming that he had what the head of Adascorp had been looking for.

It was a while longer before Adasca could get Vandrayk onto the Arkanian Legacy, but he managed to get his hands on the elderly Offshoot when he was forced to return to Arkania to treat an illness. With the help of Vandrayk's friend Jarael, whom Adasca manipulated into trusting him, Adasca learned of the location of Vandrayk's ship, The Last Resort, and swiftly found and tractored it onto the Arkanian Legacy. After finally getting his hands on Gorman Vandrayk, Adasca decided that the time was right to make his grab for power. The Arkanian Legacy was filled to capacity—with most of the 100,000-plus aboard being pureblood Arkanians—but as the ship made its long journey to the Omonoth system, Adasca began quietly transferring residents who were not in on his plan to other assignments off the ship. First, the ship stopped at a deep-space refueling station, where the sickly Vandrayk was rushed to the on-ship hospital, despite his Mandalorian friend Rohlan Dyre attacking several security guards. However, Adasca managed to pacify Dyre by granting the curious Mandalorian access to the ship's research facilities, eliminating another potential obstacle.

As the Arkanian Legacy continued its voyage to Omonoth, Adasca and his assistant Vamm busied themselves with sending out invitations to representatives from the Galactic Republic, Mandalorians and the Jedi Order. Once the ship reached its destination, the visitors begin to arrive: a small contingent of Republic survivors from the Battle of Serroco, led by Admiral Saul Karath; Mandalore the Ultimate, leader of the Mandalorians, and a large complement of warriors; and Alek, the second-in-command of the Jedi Order's Revanchist faction that advocated Jedi intervention in the Mandalorian Wars. They were soon joined by a surprise arrival, Jedi Master Lucien Draay, an old acquaintance of Adasca's and a member of the secret Jedi Covenant group of seers, who had deduced that Adasca was up to something. Refusing to accommodate a circumstance he had not planned for, Adasca had Draay poisoned and locked in the ship's brig with Republic prisoner Zayne Carrick, Draay's former Jedi Padawan who had been on the run from the Covenant after being accused of a crime he did not commit.

Once all the interested parties were aboard, Adasca took his seat in the Arkanian Legacys atrium and began overseeing a chaotic auction of sorts. Although the factions were technically under a flag of truce, that did not prevent Alek from attempting to attack the Mandalore, nearly causing an armed confrontation between the Republic and Mandalorian representatives. After demonstrating the exogorths' destructive power, Adasca began to field offers—most tantalizing being the Mandalorians' promise to make Adasca their sole weaponsmith and chief man of science, which would grant him enormous power and opportunity in a Mandalorian-dominated galaxy. However, Carrick and Draay, normally enemies, began plotting from the brig to escape and derail Adasca's plans. Together, they overpowered their guards, reclaimed Draay's lightsaber and cut themselves free. After venturing to the ship's crow's nest and discovering what was happening through the ship's security cameras, they met up with Lieutenant Carth Onasi, a member of the Republic detachment and an acquaintance of Carrick's. After retrieving his lightsaber from Onasi, Carrick got a spare set of Mandalorian armor from Rohlan Dyre and staged an fight with Onasi on the floor in front of Adasca, using the diversion to free Jarael—whom Adasca was using as a hostage to compel Vandrayk to continue his work on the exogorths—and confront the Adascorp CEO.

With a full-fledged battle underway between Adasca's security force and the Jedi and Republic representatives, the Mandalorian contingent retreated to the Mandalore's private shuttle. Adasca was unable to reach Vamm for aid—little did he know, the Duros, along with the Arkanian Doctor Suprin, had been murdered by Dyre before the firefight broke out. Vandrayk, who had been confined to an orbital exogorth control station, received word that Jarael was free, and immediately set the monstrous beasts on Adasca. After transmitting a mocking message to the Lord of House Adasca, Vandrayk ordered the exogorths to attack the Arkanian Legacy itself. Carrick, Jarael and the Republic and Jedi contingents managed to escape in the chaos, leaving Arkoh Adasca to die with his plans and his headquarters. After the exogorths ripped through the ship, the Arkanian Legacy was left derelict and listing in contested space. In the midst of the Mandalorian Wars, Republic forces were unable to determine whether any were left alive on the ship, and ultimately decided against launching a rescue and recovery mission. The ship was ultimately ruled unsalvageable by the Galactic Republic Defense Ministry.

Officially, the destruction of the Arkanian Legacy was ascribed to a Mandalorian raid that took Adasca's life—as Adascorp was an important corporate citizen of the Republic, all mention of Adasca's plots and what really happened on the Arkanian Legacy was kept out of public knowledge. For his part, Saul Karath was solely credited with saving the Republic forces in the battle and turning back the Mandalorian raid, greatly elevating his public profile. Later in the war, a Republic force led by Karath and Alek managed to retake Omonoth long enough to salvage the remnants of the Arkanian Legacy. Among other things, the Republic outfit recovered the mutilated corpse of Eejee Vamm in one of the ship's labs.

Conceived of by his grandfather Argaloh, the Arkanian Legacy passed to Arkoh Adasca upon his ascension to the stewardship of Adascorp. As the company's CEO, Adasca oversaw everything on Adascorp's mobile headquarters, using the hundreds of security cameras stationed throughout the ship to keep track of all events that took place on the Arkanian Legacy and his wider information network to observe much of what occurred in the galaxy beyond. Adasca's singleminded focus was to find Gorman Vandrayk and put his plan for galactic domination in action, and his search brought a tremendous amount of data into the Arkanian Legacy, forcing him to employ a cybernetically-augmented Duros aide, Eejee Vamm, to help manage all the information. Although Vamm was one of the only non-pureblooded Arkanians among the well over 100,000 crew and passengers aboard the ship at its peak, he was unflinchingly loyal to Adasca, as were the myriad doctors, scientists and researchers on the ship, led by the Arkanian Doctor Suprin. Although almost all the regular inhabitants of the Arkanian Legacy were Arkanians, not all of them were privy to Adasca's plans, and the CEO of Adascorp transferred those who were not in the know off the ship on the journey to Omonoth. Among the Arkanians left on the ship were Adasca's armored security team, who wielded stun batons and were aided by a contingent of HK-24 assassin droids.

The Arkanian Legacy first briefly appeared in Knights of the Old Republic 13, an issue of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comic book series, written by John Jackson Miller and released in 2007. Although the ship's first appearance only showed its holographic crow's nest, the rest of the ship made its first appearance several issues later, in Knights of the Old Republic 16. The Arkanian Legacy went on to be the primary setting for the Nights of Anger and Daze of Hate story arcs. The ship was designed by artist Brian Ching, who "spent a lot of time" in developing the ship's appearance according to Miller. During its appearances in Knights of the Old Republic, the ship was also illustrated by Harvey Tolibao and Bong Dazo. The Arkanian Legacy and the story that takes place aboard it was at least partially inspired by Archie Goodwin's depiction of The Wheel during the original Marvel Comics Star Wars comic run, and Miller devised the ship's capacity from that of Neyland Stadium, the football stadium for the University of Tennessee, Miller's alma mater.

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Handbook
• Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia