The Atrisian Commonwealth was a sector of space located on the edge of the Core Worlds and the Colonies. Containing around 200 settled worlds, the sector included the planets Atrisia and Frisal as well as the Kiliea system, the origin point of the Kiliean bolt guns. Frisal was a reserve world of the Galactic Empire and the homeworld of the eight-legged loirbnigg reptilians.
The Atrisian Commonwealth came into being at some point by 3996 BBY as a civilization independent from the Galactic Republic. By that time, the Commonwealth included Atrisia, which was home to an ancient race of Humans known as Atrisians. The region was a member of the Republic during the Clone Wars, and Atrisia also fell within the borders of the Galactic Empire a few years later. Human natives of the Commonwealth at that time included Rom Mohc and Villis Andal.
At some point following the death of Galactic Emperor Palpatine, the Atrisian Commonwealth joined the New Republic as an Allied Region. Around 11 ABY, the xenoarchaeologist Corellia Antilles speculated that recovering the missing original manuscript of the Sayings, an ancient Atrisian document, would help improve the New Republic-Commonwealth relations. Almost three decades later, the xenolinguist Milanda Vorgan characterized the Atrisian Commonwealth as being a relatively mundane locale by that time.
The Atrisian Commonwealth was a region located in the Southern Core portion of the Core Worlds and the Colonies. A narrow slice of space lying on the very edge of those larger regions, it contained approximately 200 settled worlds. The Core portion of the Commonwealth included the Atrisi system, the Frisal system, and the Kiliea system. The Atrisi system lay at the endpoint of the hyperlane known as the Giju Run, which connected it to the Core Worlds' Dahrtag system.
The Atrisi system contained the terrestrial planet Atrisia, also known as Kitel Phard, and the Frisal system was the site of a terrestrial world of the same name. The latter was the homeworld of the loirbnigg, a species of eight-legged reptilian creatures.
At some point, the inhabitants of the planet Atrisia developed interstellar spaceflight, and the world became a part of the independent civilization known as the Atrisian Commonwealth. The area of space surrounding the Artisi system was explored by the Galactic Republic at some point between 5000 BBY and 3996 BBY and thus became part of what was considered the civilized galaxy. Contact with the Atrisian Commonwealth led to the growth of the Southern Core region.
Despite space surrounding Atrisia being a part of the territories either unaligned with or contested by the Republic or the Brotherhood of Darkness by 1000 BBY, the planet fell within the borders of the Republic during the Clone Wars of 22–19 BBY. During the first campaigns of that conflict, the Twentieth Army of the Republic Military was tasked with defending Atrisia's vicinity against the military forces of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. By 17 BBY, Atrisia lay within space controlled by the Galactic Empire.
Following the death of Palpatine at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, Atrisia declared its independence from the Empire, and the Atrisian Commonwealth eventually joined the Empire's successor government, the New Republic, as an Allied Region. In a lecture given at the Galactic Museum on the Core Worlds planet Coruscant around 11 ABY, the xenoarchaeologist Doctor Corellia Antilles described the original manuscript of the Sayings—a millennia-old collection of instructional texts from the era when Atrisia was still being unified. The manuscript had been transferred from Atrisia to Coruscant twelve years prior, and during the New Republic advance on the latter planet, the document disappeared when artifacts were evacuated from the Imperial capital. Antilles went further on to state that the recovery of the Sayings manuscript would greatly improve the New Republic relations with the Atrisian Commonwealth.
The xenolinguist Doctor Milanda Vorgan noted in her 38 ABY publication "The Written Word: A Brief Introduction to the Writing Systems of Galactic Basic" that the state of the Atrisian Commonwealth by that time was relatively uneventful, especially when compared with the exotic danger associated by many people with the ancient Atrisian Empire. By 137 ABY, Atrisia had been incorporated into the Core Worlds Security Zone, an administrative territory of Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire.
Atrisia was colonized by Humans, who were generally thought to have evolved on Coruscant. Despite eventually achieving interstellar spaceflight, the Atrisians remained an insular culture, although some left their homeworld for the wider galaxy, such as Rom Mohc, who served with the Republic Military during the Clone Wars.
By the time of the Galactic Civil War, there were several noble families of Atrisians, one of which included Villis Andal, who eventually became a Moff of the Galactic Empire. Some of the pastimes of the young Atrisian nobles, Andal included, were riding loirbniggs and studying the use of Kiliean bolt guns, weapons which originated in the Kiliea system.
The Empire maintained Frisal as a preserve world for affluent Imperial families. Members of the Imperial nobility also vacationed on the planet, and the aristocrats bred and trained loirbniggs for use as mounts.
The Atrisian Commonwealth was first mentioned in Timothy O'Brien's article "From the Files of Corellia Antilles," which was published as part of the fourteenth issue of the Star Wars Adventure Journal in August 1997. The 2009 reference book The Essential Atlas provided the first visual depiction of the sector on a map created by Modi.
"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, How I Wonder Where We Are," a 1990 roleplaying game source article published in the thirteenth issue of the Voyages SF magazine, had previously placed the Atrisi system in the Harron sector. Since the article was released outside of the Lucas Licensing process, its canonicity within the Star Wars Legends continuity was never confirmed. Ultimately, The Essential Atlas overrode the Voyages SF placement by establishing that the Atrisi system was situated outside of the Expansion Region in which the Harron sector was later placed.
When writing The Essential Atlas, the authors Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry placed the planet Atrisia and a part of the Atrisian Commonwealth in the Core Worlds region of the galaxy due to previously published sources noting the planet's antiquity and its cultural importance to the wider galaxy. However, they also placed it on the very frontier of that region, near the border of the explored galactic territories. This was done intentionally to make Atrisia seem a more exotic location and to provide the authors of future Star Wars media with interesting storytelling possibilities.
- "From the Files of Corellia Antilles" — Star Wars Adventure Journal 14
- The Essential Atlas
- The Written Word on Hyperspace