Taking the Citadel in their efforts, the Separatists placed Phindian Commander Osi Sobeck in charge of the facility and blockaded Lola Sayu with a fleet in orbit, while also turning the Citadel into a nigh-impregnable fortress. Later in the war, the Republic Jedi General Even Piell was imprisoned within the Citadel after being captured by the Separatists, during both sides' efforts to claim access to the vaunted and strategic Nexus Route. Not long after, the Republic dispatched a strike team of Jedi and clone troopers to liberate Piell and his accomplices, to gain the coordinates for their war effort, eventually turning the was-to-be mission into a struggle to escape the decaying world, though the strike team managed to escape Lola Sayu.
After the end of the war, the Citadel was rumored by individuals to have been cursed and haunted. However, an old garrison of Separatist battle droids continued to operate within the facility, led by a malfunctioning droid acting on an adjusted final directive to target all Force-sensitives. Said directive thereby led to the imprisonment of a within the Citadel, subsequently resulting in a climactic at the facility with a Jedi warrior to free the child. Later, by the time of 9 ABY, Lola Sayu fell under the jurisdiction of the New Republic, holding prisoners such as Unga Toba, who was serving a twenty-five year sentence on the planet for unlawfully accessing a computer.
Orbiting a single , Lola Sayu was a volcanic, decaying but terrestrial planet located in the northeast section of the galaxy, in the Lola Sayu system of the Outer Rim Territories' Belderone sector. Situated in grid square R-6 on the Standard Galactic Grid, the planet was slightly located along the western side of the super-hyperroute known as the Perlemian Trade Route, which connected the sulfurous world to the astronomical objects of Aralia and Lianna. Additionally, Lola Sayu was also situated just off the Salin Corridor, where it would junction to the planets Quell and Sy Myrth. In its orbit, due to an unknown cataclysmic event that caused Lola Sayu's cracked state, the planet's gravitational field was littered with planetary debris that continuously floated its orbit and made spatial approaches difficult and dangerous.
From its orbit and outer space, Lola Sayu appeared with a beautiful purple glow that was created from the brittle volcanic crust of its northern side. Meanwhile, on its surface, the planet was dotted with caves, crevasses, hills and mountains, alongside river-like cracks that spanned to where the crust ended at its destroyed southern hemisphere, while also glowing with the heat of the lava from the planet's exposed molten core. However, the surface was also extremely treacherous and unpredictable, with several roads perilously closing in on the edges of lava flows that came from the southern side's vast Sulfur Sea, often leading travelers to labyrinth cave systems or dangerously steep valleys. In addition to its harsh conditions, water was relatively scarce on Lola Sayu and neither plant or animal life were known to exist on the planet's surface. Despite the planet's inherent fragility, Lola Sayu was habitable and life-supporting to an extent, holding a breathable, oxygen-mixed yet thin atmosphere on its northern side, that was suitable for species such as humans, Phindian and Togruta.
Prior to its discovery by the Galactic Republic, the Outer Rim world known as Lola Sayu was plagued by a cataclysmic event. In its aftermath, nearly the entire southern hemisphere of the planet had disappeared, forming a gravitational belt of planetary debris in its orbit as its surface continued to slowly fall apart over millennia. However, exactly what caused Lola Sayu's state was undetermined by the galaxy and was likely never going to uncovered. Despite its broken state, though, the planet retained a precarious ability to sustain terrestrial life on its northern side and was eventually discovered by the Republic by the time of 522 BBY, who decided to utilize Lola Sayu's surface for a grim purpose.
In 522 BBY, the Republic worked alongside its allies of the Jedi Order to establish an isolated, maximum-security prison that would eventually become known as the infamous Citadel. Designed to contain Jedi individuals who had either gone rogue or fallen to the dark side of the Force, the spiring facility was constructed on the north-western side of the planet, along a bridge between two lakes of yellow lava, powered by the geothermal energies that emanated from Lola Sayu. Approximately two years after its construction, in 520 BBY, the Citadel had served its intended purpose as it was utilized to contain a who had fallen from the Order. Later on, long before the Clone Wars, information regarding the pathways in and out of the Citadel, including cave and tunnel systems were recorded within the Jedi Archives of the Jedi Temple the Core Worlds planet of Coruscant.
A Lucrehulk-class Battleship in orbit of Lola Sayu
Although Lola Sayu was controlled by the Republic for several centuries, the planet's allegiance quickly shifted as it fell deep within the territory of the Confederacy of Independent Systems early on in the Clone Wars against the Republic. Due to its newfound location during the war, the confederate government was able to launch an effort to take control of Lola Sayu, capturing both the planet and Citadel in the process. Upon their capture of Lola Sayu, the Separatists quickly discovered the prison's value in containing and interrogating their Jedi prisoners. To that end, the confederate government swiftly established a blockade of Separatist warships in orbit, as well as placed a unit of battle droids on the surface under the command of Commander Osi Sobeck, a sadistic Phindian warden who outfitted the Citadel with modern-day security measures, such as life-form scanners and anti-aircraft weaponry.
With the Citadel under Sobeck's wardenship, the Phindian commanded the facility with an unending cruelty, relishing the torture of his prisoners by EV-series medical droids. Aided by the T-series tactical droid K2-B4, Sobeck was also proud of the Citadel's vast amounts of security and obvious traps established for unwelcome guests, such as electro-mines and the naturally-generated wind conditions, both of which prevented jetpack and grappling hook usage. Due to Lola Sayu's capture, coupled by the blockade's movements and security measures that were regulated by the Phindian warden, the Republic probes were prevented from obtaining recent reconnaissance of the facility and its security capabilities, which forced the Jedi Order to construct an unreliable map of the corridors and tunnels of the Citadel from the data within the Jedi Archives.
Even Piell fighting on Lola Sayu
Lola Sayu was conquered by the Confederacy of Independent Systems early in the Clone Wars, placing the Citadel under Separatist control. During the war, Jedi Master Even Piell was brought to Lola Sayu and imprisoned at the Citadel for vital information he carried. A strike team was sent to rescue him and his fleet officers, but because their ship was destroyed in the attempt to escape, an entire fleet of Republic ships arrived to rescue them and the planet became a site of a large battle.
After the end of the Clone Wars, a Separatist holdout remained on the citadel. The holdout was led by a malfunctioning droid that tried to follow its final directive.