Lotho Minor

A stormy, desolate terrestrial planet in orbit of the sun Lotho, Lotho Minor was located beyond the Western Reaches in the Lotho Minor system, which itself was located in the northern part of the Outer Rim Territories' Wazta sector, in grid square I-17 on the Standard Galactic Grid. The world was close to the Koda Spur hyperspace route, which connected it to the planet Thune and a space station known as Koda Station. Lotho Minor had a brownish surface covered with enormous mountains of trash piled over countless generations, with much of it permanently on fire, and had more junk than even the planet Raxus Prime. No approach vectors that could be used to enter the atmosphere were established.

The gutted and rotting hulls of ancient starships poked through the more recent garbage, lending its landscape the eerie feel of an industrial graveyard. Foul-smelling fog limited visibility, while huge pools of toxic sludge and periodic bursts of deadly acid rain made the hot and caustic planet's ruined ecosystem one of the most dangerous in the galaxy. The planet's Type I atmosphere was breathable to some species, yet Lotho Minor looked rusty and unattractive even from orbit, featuring occasional and aggressive rains of solid metal along with strong winds that blew the junk across the world. Combined with rust storms, underground explosions, and other sudden movements in the lower layers, Lotho Minor's numerous planetary hazards provoked the detachment of sharp waste and debris or flash floods of chemicals previously held by weather-worn dams.

"Nellis Express to Lotho Minor" was the nickname for a deadly tunnel in the Safa Toma Speedway, a Riot Racing track located on the planet Serolonis around the year 19 BBY, in reference to the likewise-dangerous Lotho Minor. The planet also contained pits, which were the subject of slang used as an interjection for surprise: "What in the pits of Lotho Minor?" The smuggler Han Solo uttered the phrase upon confronting infant sarlaccs that could move around around 5 BBY.

Despite being located beyond the very remote Western Reaches, Lotho Minor was discovered in the early days of the Galactic Republic. It was quickly designated as a junk repository after the discovery that very few sentient species were indigenous to the planet—the few that were did not matter to the Republic's self-interested politicians or corporations. While the Republic initially tried to control the traffic destined for Lotho Minor with the help of several large mega-corporations, the lack of a permanent presence or Republic space station that could be used to patrol the surface allowed anyone wishing to leave their waste on the planet's surface to do so, forcing inhabitants to be careful of falling debris, which blended into the rest of the once-harmless planet. The species that did consider Lotho Minor their home traded with some of the few visitors to the world.

Eventually, the planet Naboo came to send its untreatable waste and contaminated coolant there through an automatic refill system, and drone barges ferried junk from the moon Cymoon 1 to Lotho Minor. Cargo ships routinely dropped holds of garbage onto the planet with little concern for neither what became of it nor any security measures, often doing so without warning. Centuries before the Clone Wars, immense refuse incinerator droids were programmed to incinerate Lotho Minor's garbage. As centuries went on, Lotho Minor's pollution drove all of its few sentient species to extinction. While most non-native species equated Lotho Minor to Hell, it was considered a legendary haven by Jawas, Squibs, and Ugors.

Due to the horrible conditions that made Lotho Minor one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy, cultural historians, archaeologists, and students of engineering history could not conduct researches to find answers to their questions. Junk dealers from throughout the Outer Rim traveled to the planet to scavenge functional parts among countless layers of junk on Lotho Minor's surface. Since radiation spikes made scanning difficult, visitors were forced to fly their vessels very low while trying not to be beaten down by a rain of debris transformed into meteorites—a fate shared by many. A number of the more careful junk dealers chose to engage with Lotho Minor's population of Junkers.

By 20 BBY, the refuse incinerator droids continued to labor among the mountains of garbage. Those unfortunate enough to live on Lotho Minor did not know the droids' origins and referred to them simply as "fire-breathers." Salvage operations also dug through the planet-wide junkyard, looking to reclaim and recondition reusable or obsolete machinery, and Lotho Minor came to be known as the Junk World.

After his defeat at the hands of the Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi during the Battle of Naboo in 32 BBY, the shattered body of Darth Maul, a Dathomirian Zabrak Sith Lord, was dumped amid Lotho Minor's junk. Maul lived in hiding for more than a decade in the caves beneath Lotho Minor's surface, subsisting off trash and vermin, but his driving desire to cling to life pushed him to rebuild himself with spider-like legs made of the planet's scrap metal in place of his severed ones. An Anacondan named Morley cut a deal with Maul in order to survive, agreeing to lure unwitting prey into Maul's clutches in return for his leftovers.

At some point, Maul attempted to escape Lotho Minor by luring a starship that he could escape in. He sent out a transmission that offered a large amount of credits for capturing him. The transmission would eventually be heard by Spikewheel, the droid captain of the starship Salvage-1, who traveled to the planet a week later. She stranded the Nikto Gritz, who aspired to become the droid's first mate and was tasked with capturing Maul, along with three other crew member hopefuls—the human Brennar, the Theelin Riki, and the Roonan Seles—to serve as bait. Not long after Spikewheel left the group on the planet surface, they fell into Maul's subterranean lair subsequent to a quick scuffle with each other.

With the group trying to find their way within the dark labyrinth, Maul quietly grabbed Seles and separated him from the rest of the recruits, but Brennar soon found both Maul and the captured Roonan. As the duo was about to be killed by the insane Zabrak, Gritz managed to ensnare Maul in an electronet and save them. The recruits later returned to Spikewheel with the captured Zabrak aboard the Salvage-1. Before the ship could leave the planet's atmosphere, Maul freed himself and attacked the scavengers, splitting the droid captain in half. Riki subsequently opened the ship's rear hatch to ditch Maul; however, Gritz and the remains of his captain also fell from the ship along with Maul during the process, leaving the hapless Nikto to be killed by Maul while the other recruits escaped the planet. Years later, Vaneé, the Sith Lord Darth Vader's attendant, told the story of the salvagers to scare his prisoner, rebel Lieutenant Thom Hudd, at Vader's castle.

Lotho Minor remained neutral during the Clone Wars, and in 20 BBY, Mother Talzin of the Dathomirian Nightsisters tasked Savage Opress with finding Maul, his long-lost brother, and gave him the Talisman of Finding to aid in his quest. On the planet Stobar, the talisman guided Opress to some dust clinging to an assortment of cargo crates that were being transported by a Sakiyan cargo hauler. Opress learned that the Sakiyan's Turtle Tanker had recently visited Lotho Minor and forced the hauler to take him there. When they arrived, Opress dropped the Sakiyan out of the ship in mid-air.

While scouring the planet's endless garbage wastes for his brother, Opress encountered Morley, who guided him past such threats as the enormous fire-breathers and a tribe of territorial Junkers, some of who were slain by the Zabrak. Morley lured Opress into Maul's lair, believing Lotho Minor's newest guest would be their next meal. At first, the two brothers wrestled with each other in the dark labyrinth of garbage, but Opress quickly recognized Maul and saw that his brother's mind had been shattered by his long-ago defeat. When Morley interrupted them to check on the status of their meal, Opress strangled the Anacondan to death for his treachery. At Opress' prodding, Maul soon remembered himself and vowed revenge on the Jedi. The brothers then traveled back to the world Dathomir, where Talzin repaired Maul's body and mind.

By the time of the Galactic Civil War between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, a Duros named Akar Duel had come to consider Lotho Minor his own planet. He created many junk droids from the droid parts he collected on the planet and used restraining bolts to force them into his service. Sometime after the Battle of Yavin, a team of rebels consisting of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and the protocol droid C-3PO traveled to Lotho Minor aboard the starship Millennium Falcon in search of a suitable location for a new base. Two of Duel's droids, Doc and Teetee, attempted to warn the rebels about the Duros, but he had already noticed their arrival.

Surrounding the rebels with his conscripted droids, Duel wanted to steal the Millennium Falcon; however, the droids turned against their master upon learning that C-3PO was allowed to have free will, unlike themselves, and they eventually gained their freedom. The rebels then quickly fled Lotho Minor, giving up the idea of establishing a base there. Sometime later, after leaving the planet themselves, Doc and Teetee told their story to Bazine Netal, a spy who was searching for the Millennium Falcon.

Another droid that found its way to Lotho Minor was a droideka that was at some point discovered by the Ugnaught Dizzy. Enthralled by the idea of the great speeds a machine like it could reach, Dizzy took ownership of the droid and heavily modified it. While on the planet, the Ugnaught also took the time to cobble together a racing suit based on material found on Lotho Minor, deciding not to be picky when it came to the options available. Dizzy and the droideka later entered the Hunters of the Outer Rim, a tournament held on the planet Vespaara in 9 ABY, going by the united persona of Slingshot.

The assassin droids 0-0-0 and BT-1 traveled to the Wreck Belt orbiting Lotho Minor in 0 ABY, shortly after the former lost his original arms at the Battle of Vrogas Vas. For receiving repair and supplies, the droids visited a workshop at the Belt, which was operated by a human mercenary technician named Ruen. While 0-0-0 was undergoing repairs, Ruen noticed that the droid carried a valuable personality matrix and attempted to steal it. As BT-1 halted Ruen's plans and threated to kill him, the two parties eventually agreed on leaving on good terms after the mechanic fulfilled the original deal. However, before leaving the workshop, BT-1 hacked into the shop's systems and granted Ruen's combat droids their independence. The droids soon turned against Ruen and killed him, detonating the entire workshop in the process.

Years later, around 3–4 ABY, the droid bounty hunter 4-LOM, having been reprogrammed and given a deadly new body, laid a trap in a derelict Hutt freighter located at Lotho Minor's Wreck Belt for his former partner, the Gand Zuckuss. Knowing he was walking into a trap but desperate to reunite with his only friend, Zuckuss traced the droid's signal and traveled to the Belt with a party of four other hunters—T'onga, Losha Tarkon, Bossk, and Tasu Leech—aboard the starship Edgehawk. Upon boarding the derelict ship, the team confronted the bounty droid, with Zuckuss disconnecting 4-LOM's head from his body and resetting the droid's personality.

Around 34 ABY, the historian and author Eloc Throno marked Lotho Minor's location in a galaxy map published in his book Traveler's Guide to Batuu.

Lotho Minor was the homeworld of the mysterious Junkers, although their population was small. Consisting of various species, the tribal denizens appeared to be a strange hybrid of organic life and mechanical debris, and no one was quite sure of their origin. Lotho Minor's role as a galactic dumping ground and the Junkers' violent territoriality discouraged any deep exploration into their culture or biology. The Junkers lived off the scrap found on their homeworld's surface, augmenting their twisted bodies with cybernetic enhancements, which replaced their missing limbs that were lost to corrosive chemicals, radiation, or accidents. They had lived on Lotho Minor for so long that it was impossible to tell where their bodies ended and the garbage began. Other microscopic natives to the world were exterminated millenia prior to the Clone Wars, with yet other creatures having been present for a number of centuries and thus were considered endemic.

The Junk World was also the homeworld of the cunning Anacondan Morley during the Clone Wars. The serpentine creature slithered through the mountains of trash and survived by delivering sustenance to Darth Maul in exchange for the exiled Sith Lord's scraps. While the debris of galactic civilization on Lotho Minor lay largely inactive, the world's population additionally included individuals whose ships had crashed and therefore were trying to find a way offworld; those who had committed atrocities would also sometimes find their way to Lotho Minor to go into hiding. Individuals hoping to find precious metals were another group that resided on the planet.

During the reign of the Empire, the Duros Akar Duel lived on Lotho Minor and regarded himself as the planetary ruler. He employed many junk droids by force, including Doc, Teetee, and another droid with the head of an EV-series unit. In a life-changing moment for all the droids on Lotho Minor, Duel's servants revolted against their master and gained their freedom. A droideka also spent time on the world before being taken away by the Ugnaught Dizzy.

Beneath the enormous piles of trash on Lotho Minor's surface, the Sith Lord Darth Maul lived in a cavernous lair during his exile. Accessible through a deep pit inside a shelter on the surface, Maul's lair consisted of deep tunnels in the junk. Lotho Minor was orbited by a mechanical debris field known as the Wreck Belt, where the mechanic Ruen operated his workshop.

Lotho Minor was created for "Brothers," the twenty-first episode in the fourth season of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated television series, which first aired on March 9, 2012. Several "spirit of" designs for Lotho Minor were illustrated by Kilian Plunkett and Pat Presley, and the planet was referred to as "Lamoth" in some pieces of concept art. The StarWars.com Encyclopedia entry for Lotho Minor introduced the nickname "Junk World." Lotho Minor was originally introduced in the Star Wars Legends continuity via the young-adult novel The Wrath of Darth Maul, written by Ryder Windham and released in January 2012. This story referenced the events of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Brothers" prior to its television debut.

The planet later appeared in a story dubbed "The Horned Devil!" in the first issue of the comic series Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader's Castle, which was written by Cavan Scott with art by Megan Levens, and was released by IDW Publishing on October 2, 2019. As preparation for her task, Levens examined Lotho Minor's depiction in "Brothers," patterning her illustration on the episode's design choice to show the planet's piles of junk and debris as vague, jagged shapes, suggesting that they consisted of unsteady garbage piled up over many years. She also indicated that she imagined the environment of the sinkhole and tunnels beneath the surface of Lotho Minor as the carcass of an old structure or ship that had decayed under centuries of heavy garbage and environmental stress, designing the tunnels as they were either former corridors or giant ducts.

Additionally, the 2021 mobile game Star Wars: Hunters features an unlockable cosmetics item titled "Lotho Racing Green" for Dizzy's droideka as part of the playable character duo Slingshot in the game. The item paints the destroyer in muddied yellows, greens, and brownsmakes, referring to Lotho Minor's surface aesthetic.

While the sixty-second issue of De Agostini's Star Wars: Build the Millennium Falcon magazine, published around March 9, 2016, places Lotho Minor in grid square I-7 of the Standard Galactic Grid as part of the Wazta sector, the 2020 Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge: Traveler's Guide to Batuu and the 2021 Star Wars Droids Guide to a Galaxy Far, Far Away both place the planet in what Star Wars: The Force Awakens Beginner Game identifies as grid square I-17. Since the 2022 Star Wars Galaxy Map also places Lotho Minor in I-17, this article assumes the aforementioned Build the Millennium Falcon issue is erroneous.

The same Build the Millennium Falcon issue also establishes that Lotho Minor was situated on the Lutrillian Cross, adding that it was the closest and largest hyperspace route to the Lotho Minor system. This contradicts the route's placement relative to the planet's location on the Star Wars Galaxy Map. This article treats the information from Build the Millennium Falcon as an error.

Build the Millennium Falcon 62 also suggests that few beings visited the world's surface, which creates an apparent contradiction with "Hoth and Other Planets in the Outer Rim," the fifty-ninth issue of De Agostini's Star Wars Encyclopedia reference booklets released on January 12, 2022. The issue states that junk dealers from all over the Outer Rim Territories were known to travel to the world. This article disregards the information provided by the former source.