Kashyyyk, also known as Planet Wookiee C to some humans in the Core Worlds, was a wroshyr tree-covered forest planet located in the southwestern quadrant of the galaxy and the homeworld of the Wookiee species. Four millennia before the Battle of Yavin, Kashyyyk was discovered by the Czerka Corporation, who enslaved the Wookiee population and renamed the planet G5-623, later to Edean. Using superior technology, the company managed to enslave the Wookiees until an uprising drove the oppressors away. During the Clone Wars, Kashyyyk was a member of the Galactic Republic, and endured enslavement under the Galactic Empire, the Republic's successor. Later, during the rise of the New Republic, Kashyyyk was liberated with the help of Republic forces led by Han Solo.
Can-cells fly over Kashyyyk's mountains.
Kashyyyk was a temperate jungle planet orbiting around a single star located in the Mytaranor sector of the Mid Rim. The planet had a complement of three moons, one of which was orange. The planet had no axial tilt and a perfectly circular orbit, causing it to lack seasons. The center of the planet was covered with a tropical ocean belt, which contained a number of islands and large coral reefs.
Covered in wroshyr trees, Kashyyyk served as homeworld to the Wookiee species. Native fauna, such as Can-cells would influence the design of starships by the Wookiee inhabitants, while great cities, such as Kachirho would be built into the planet's trees. The Kashyyykian wilds could be dangerous to many, thanks to dangerous animals, such as Terentateks or wyyyschokk spiders in addition to carnivorous plants, such as the jaw plant and saava.
The crash site of the prison ship Ashmead's Lock was known as the Black Forest. Wookiees believed that the Black Forest was cursed and haunted by bad spirits. By 5 ABY, sections of Kashyyyk's forests had been deforested and several rivers had been drained. The Empire also established undersea mining platforms. Mount Arayakyak was once a rainforest orchard known as the Cultivating Talon, which provided Wookiees with fruits, such as shi-shok. By the Imperial Era, it had been defoliated by a poisonous black mold.
Two years after the planet's liberation by the New Republic, much of the Black Forest had grown back. The growing forest was still littered with the remnants of Imperial machinery, including an AT-ACT walker.
Kashyyyk was in the same star system as Trandosha, the home of the Trandoshan species, who were traditional enemies of the Wookiees.
In its early history, the Zeffo, an ancient technologically advanced species, travelled to Kashyyyk where they had contact with the Wookiees. Millennia before the Galactic Civil War, the Predori prison ship Ashmead's Lock crashed on the planet when a nearby gravity well collapsed on itself.
Four millennia before the Battle of Yavin, Kashyyyk was discovered by the Czerka Corporation, who renamed the planet G5-623, and later to Edean. Using superior technology, the company managed to enslave the Wookiees until an uprising drove the invaders away. That painful episode left lasting scars in the Wookiees' hearts.
By 232 BBY, the Jedi Order had established a Jedi outpost on Kashyyyk.
At some point prior to the Invasion of Naboo, Jedi Master Yoda faced a terentatek on Kashyyyk, accompanied by his then Padawan Dooku. At another point, Jedi Master Eno Cordova was researching Zeffonian culture on Kashyyyk, and befriended Wookiee chieftain Tarfful.
For twenty years, Kashyyyk's Wookiees, as well as the Wookiee population of its colony planets, needed to repeatedly repel the Trade Federation.
Aided by the clone forces of the Galactic Republic, the Wookiees defended their homeworld from a Separatist invasion.
In the years following the Invasion of Naboo, the rogue Jedi Count Dooku fomented political turmoil on the planet. Due to its status as a major navigational point, Kashyyyk was of prime strategic importance to the Galactic Republic, which led the Confederacy of Independent Systems to attack the planet toward the end of the Clone Wars. During the battle for their homeworld, hundreds of the Wookiee's catamarans were deployed. Eventually, the Confederacy's invasion fleet was driven off by Jedi General Master Yoda's taskforce, but a massive force of LM-432 crab droids, droid tanks, and gunships remained and occupied the Wawaatt Archipelago.
In the last days of the Clone Wars, with the help of Yoda and Jedi Master Luminara Unduli, the Grand Army of the Republic managed to get the upper hand over the Separatists. However, shortly after that victory, the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic Sheev Palpatine unilaterally transformed the government into the First Galactic Empire. While Yoda was able to escape from the clone troopers that attacked him after the initiation of Order 66, Unduli was captured and taken to Stygeon Prime's prison, the Spire.
Despite Kashyyyk's loyalty to the Republic, the self-appointed Emperor had the Wookiees enslaved, and their planet itself was blockaded, when the Empire launched a siege of the planet. Used as slave labor, the Empire would utilize the Wookiees to cut down the planet's native wroshyr trees for lumber and farm food to feed the Imperial Army as well as send them off to labor camps and construction jobs, such as building the first Death Star, or for science and bio-weapon experiments. In addition to being occupied and enslaved, Kashyyyk was also stripped of its name and designated Imperial territory G5-623.
Several months into Kashyyyk's occupation, Trandoshan mercenaries were contracted by the Empire and supplied with Incinerator tanks. Under the supervision of clone stormtroopers, the Trandoshans were tasked with burning down large sectors of forest on the planet in an effort to make way for Imperial industrialization. Order 66 survivor Padawan Gungi later assisted a tribe of Wookiees in destroying a convoy of these tanks.
By 18 BBY, news of the Imperial subjugation of Kashyyyk had spread to the news bulletins, leading the former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano to worry about her Wookiee friend Chewbacca, who she had briefly met during the Clone Wars.
Padawan Cal Kestis worked with a resistance cell on Kashyyyk during his quest to restore the Jedi Order.
In 14 BBY, a rebel cell led by Saw Gerrera was present on Kashyyyk and in conflict with the Empire. During this fight, Order 66 survivor Cal Kestis and the crew of the Stinger Mantis arrived to continue their search for a Jedi holocron. Gerrera's cell assisted them in their search for Tarfful, but the majority of their forces later retreated after being overwhelmed by the Empire.
Cal crossed paths with Kashyyyk again when he received a communication that Tarfful was willing to meet. Back on Kashyyyk, Tarfful instructed Cal to seek answers at the top of the Origin Tree. On the way up, he was attacked by the Ninth Sister, whose ship was taken down by a large winged creature. Cal found the creature wounded from the attack and healed it, granting him access to the top of the Origin tree via a flight on its back. Cal is attacked once again by the Ninth Sister and defeated her.
At some point during the Imperial Era, the natives of Kashyyyk attempted to revolt against the Empire. However, General Kahdah and the Imperial 212th Attack Battalion managed to quell the insurrection. On Kashyyyk, the Spectres raided several supply convoys before the Battle of Yavin. In the years leading up to the Battle of Yavin, the Imperial Commodore Thrawn and Lieutenant Commander Eli Vanto discovered that Wookiee slaves from Kashyyyk were being transported for processing and health checks to Lansend Twenty-Six. They also foiled an attempt by the insurgent leader Nightswan to rescue the slaves.
A Wookiee Auzituck anti-slaver gunship patrols against slavers.
Regardless of the Empire's grip on the planet, Kashyyyk became an Alliance to Restore the Republic safe world. A map of the galaxy with a legend listing the various Alliance safe worlds, starfighter hubs at level five or higher, rebel operations sectors and regional headquarters, and shadow planets with deep space caches, included Kashyyyk. The map would eventually be included in The Rebel Files.
Some time before the Battle of Endor occurred, a massacre occurred on the planet under the command of the Empire.
In the months following the Battle of Endor and the death of the Galactic Empire's totalitarian ruler, the New Order would be thrown into a fractured and volatile state, putting Kashyyyk on lockdown as supply lines and convoys fell victim to the newly formed New Republic. Imperial territory G5-623 was ruled by Grand Moff Lozen Tolruck, who enslaved the Wookiee population using inhibitor chips. Like Governor Ubrik Adelhard's Imperial remnant, Tolruck propagated the myth that Palpatine was alive and well. He did not fall in line with the Imperial forces commanded by Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax.
As the Galactic Empire declined, Han Solo endeavored to liberate the homeworld of his friend, the Wookiee Chewbacca.
With the Republic unwilling to divert resources towards the planet, Han Solo and Chewbacca would undertake a mission on the world with various other Wookiee refugees turned mercenaries after intelligence from Imra reported that Imperial redeployments would reduce the planet's garrison, if only for a few days. Imra's information proved unreliable and Chewbacca was captured by the Empire and imprisoned at Ashmead's Lock. Han managed to rescue Chewie and the other prisoners with the help of Norra Wexley and her rebel band.
While Norra and her son, Temmin Wexley returned to Chandrila with the other prisoners, Han and Chewie along with the former Imperial loyalty officer Sinjir Rath Velus and the New Republic soldier Jom Barell led a successful Wookiee slave rebellion against Tolruck's Imperial remnant. Sinjir managed to neutralize Tolruck's chips with a hyperspace transceiver. With his forces overwhelmed, Tolruck ordered his Star Destroyers to bombard Kashyyyk. However, a New Republic fleet led by Admiral Ackbar and Leia Organa attacked the Imperial fleet and forced their surrender.
Following the liberation of Kashyyyk, Wookiee and New Republic forces conducted mopping-up operations against Imperial holdouts. During one of these operations, Chewbacca reunited with his son, Lumpawaroo, who had escaped from an Imperial slave labor camp.
By 7 ABY, Chewbacca had settled down in a village led by the female Wookiee chief Karasshki. Around that time, the rogue Pau'an surgeon Fyzen Gor began kidnapping and killing Wookiees, harvesting their limbs for his Original Dozen droid followers. Gor earned the nickname "Long Man." When Han Solo and Lando Calrissian visited Kashyyyk, seeking Chewbacca's help in a quest to recover the Phylanx Redux Transmitter. Chewbacca agreed to help Han and Lando track down this "Long Man" in order to recover the remains of the murdered Wookiees to give them proper funeral rites. Chewbacca subsequently returned to Kashyyyk following his adventures.
Chewbacca lived on Kashyyyk with his family until resuming his adventures with Han Solo prior to the Hosnian Cataclysm.
The First Order targeted Kashyyyk during its conquest of the galaxy.
During the war between the First Order and the Resistance, the First Order launched a blockade of the planet and deployed an element of its Stormtrooper Corps to the surface. When the Resistance arrived to end the blockade, the First Order attempted to enslave members of the Wookiee population, but the operation was stopped by Chewbacca.
Tree-house concept art by Ralph McQuarrie used in The Star Wars Holiday Special
Kashyyyk, the homeworld of the Wookiee species appeared as "Kasshook" or "Kazzook (Ganaararlacc)" in George Lucas notes for Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back and was set to appear in the film, described as a planet with huge trees. The original drafts of Return of the Jedi called for the second Death Star to be built in orbit around Kashyyyk by Wookiee slave labor. It was not until later drafts that Lucas decided that the setting and characters would be changed to the forest moon of Endor and Ewoks.
The planet was introduced in the Star Wars Legends continuity, in the 1978 The Star Wars Holiday Special. Kashyyyk's first canon appearance was in 2005 in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
Kashyyyk appeared in the non-canon animated television series LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures episode "Peril on Kashyyyk," which premiered on Disney XD on June 27, 2016. As in the Legends and Canon timelines, Kashyyyk is blockaded by an Imperial fleet. In the story, the Freemakers, a scavenging family, rescue the Wookiee prince Tantarra from a Trandoshan fortress island. Hitherto, the Trandoshans had been ruling Kashyyyk on the Empire's behalf and had taken Tantarra as a hostage in order to force Tantarra's submission. The rescue of Tantarra allows his father Chief Attiburra to launch an attack on the Trandoshans.
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "Zander's Joyride"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "Peril on Kashyyyk"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "The Kyber Saber Crystal Chase"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "Duel of Destiny"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "A New Home"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "Home One"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "Beware, the Gamorrean Flu!"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "Flight of the Arrowhead"
- LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — "A Perilous Rescue"
- Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes
- The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special
- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga