Empress Teta was a city-world that was considered the gateway to the Deep Core. Orbited by the moon Atale, it was connected to Coruscant via the Koros Trunk Line and to Prakith via the Byss Run. Additionally, Empress Teta was situated on the Carbonite Run. When the Galactic Empire came to power, Empress Teta became a key checkpoint for the Imperial Deep Core Security Zone, causing Imperial Intelligence to restrict non-essential traffic by intentionally making the system's astrogation charts confusing and inconsistent.
Empress Teta's cityscape was known as Cinnagar, the planet's capital which grew over millennia to cover the whole surface. The most upscale part of Cinnagar was the Core District, while the Royal District was the home of the royal family. Under the city-scape existed carbonite and andris spice mines operated by the Mining Guild. Though most of the system's andris production occurred off-world by the age of the Empire, the guild retained much of its administrative infrastructure in Cinnagar.
Believed to be the home to one of the galaxy's oldest human civilizations, some buildings in Cinnagar were dated to circa 27,000 BBY. In antiquity, Empress Teta was home to extensive mining operations of andris and carbonite, which allowed the world to become an early stronghold of the Mining Guild. Historians linked the carbonite mining operations on Empress Teta to sleeper ships that were used to spread humanity throughout the Core Worlds.
The planet's ancient history was recounted in a series of epic poems known as the Qel-Droma Epics, which detailed the conquest of the Koros system by the Teta, the empress of Koros Major, as well as her resistance to Sith Lord Naga Sadow during the Great Hyperspace War; Koros Major would later be renamed in Teta's honor. The poems also recounted the adventures of Jedi Knight Ulic Qel-Droma, who was believed to have infiltrated a mysterious dark side cult known as the Krath which slaughtered Jedi and conquered Empress Teta. While the Jedi taught the Epics as historical fact, the efforts of archaeologists to verify the truth of the myths were inconclusive.
Though the andris mines on Empress Teta were abandoned once they ran dry, the Mining Guild continued to assert control over the world and eventually usurped the power of the ruling Keto family in all but name. The guild's affiliation with the Confederacy of Independent Systems caused Empress Teta to side against the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars, while loyalist nobles fled to Coruscant. After the war ended with a Separatist defeat, the newly-formed Galactic Empire installed these nobles in positions of power, such as planetary bureaucrats or Mining Guild administrators.
During the Galactic Civil War, the planet was ruled by Emperor Alor Keto, though he was largely an ineffectual puppet of the Mining Guild. Already a major supplier for the Imperial Military, Empress Teta assumed increased strategic importance for the Empire as its location restricted access to the Deep Core Security Zone, where the Empire tested experimental technologies such as Interdictors. The world was protected by Admiral Yzu's 15th Deep Core Reserve Fleet.
Empress Teta was first created for Tales of the Jedi – Dark Lords of the Sith 1, the first issue of the Star Wars Legends comic book series Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, which was released on October 1, 1994 and written by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson. The world was confirmed to exist in canon when it appeared on a galactic map included with Star Wars: Build the Millennium Falcon 36, a magazine released by De Agostini in 2015.
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