The Uphrades system was a star system located in the Inner Rim that contained the fertile agriworld Uphrades. During the Cold War between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire, the system's 16 million inhabitants worked to supply the Republic capital of Coruscant with most of its food supplies, but an attack on Uphrades by the Sith Lord Darth Angral using the Desolator superweapon ravaged the planet's surface and left only a few hundred survivors. Those survivors were eventually rescued thanks to the efforts of the medical frigate Daybreaker, whose crew had purposely crashed their vessel into Uphrades' now heavily ionized atmosphere to reach them and bring aid, but Uphrades and its system remained barren and lifeless in the aftermath of Angral's assault.
The Uphrades system was a star system that was located in the Inner Rim, in the slice of the Northern Dependencies region that lay between the Hydian Way and the Perlemian Trade Route. Named after its principal world, the planet Uphrades, the system was a major agricultural supplier for the Galactic Republic's capital of Coruscant until the devastation of Uphrades at the hands of Darth Angral, a Sith Lord of the Sith Empire, in 3643 BBY.
The region in which the Uphrades system was located was largely explored by 22,000 BBY, and by the time of the Cold War between the Republic and the Sith Empire, the system had become a major supplier of foodstuffs for Coruscant thanks to the efforts of the Jedi organization known as the Jedi Restoration Concord. However, Darth Angral targeted the planet in 3643 BBY during his war against the Republic after the death of his son, Tarnis, at the hands of a Jedi Knight. Angral utilized the Desolator superweapon on Uphrades, destroying most of the planet's surface and creating a small asteroid belt around the planet. The attack completely destroyed Uphrades' ability to produce foodstuffs and killed almost all of the people on the surface, leaving only a few hundred survivors. The only ship to witness the attack, a Republic medical frigate named the Daybreaker, was attacked by Angral's forces as he departed the system, but the Jedi Knight who was the target of the Sith's wrath defeated the Imperial boarding parties after coming to the damaged ship's aid near Uphrades.
Uphrades after Angral's attack
The Daybreakers crew later sacrificed their ship to aid the survivors on Uphrades, despite the efforts of the ship's captain, Dal, to change his crew's mind, and the crew purposely crashed the ship by entering Uphrades' heavily ionized atmosphere so that they could reach the survivors and ensure that they endured until the Republic could rescue them.
During the New Sith Wars, a conflict that occurred over two thousand years later between the Republic and the Sith, the Uphrades system and the rest of the region was largely unaligned or contested, though that section of the Inner Rim was located within Republic space during the Clone Wars of 22–19 BBY and was absorbed by the Republic's successor state, the Galactic Empire, at the end of the conflict. The New Republic had taken control of that area by 9 ABY, when Admiral Thrawn led a campaign that temporarily reclaimed much of the northern galaxy for the Empire, but by the year 137 ABY the Empire under the Sith Lord Darth Krayt had taken control of the region in which the Uphrades system was located.
Uphrades, also known as "Coruscant's Granary" in the years before its devastation, was a thriving agriworld with 16 million inhabitants during the Cold War. Its especially rich soil was the result of intense volcanic activity around 23,643 BBY, and the planet possessed a breathable atmosphere, temperate climate, and five continents separated by significant surface water. After Darth Angral's attack, Uphrades' greenery was turned to ash, and large chunks of the surface were ripped away, forming an asteroid belt and exposing pockets of magma that vaporized the planet's oceans.
The Uphrades system on the Galaxy Map, north of Coruscant, Alderaan, and a misplaced Balmorra
Uphrades and the Uphrades system first appeared in Star Wars: The Old Republic, a video game released by BioWare and LucasArts in 2011, in which they are the location of the Jedi Knight class mission "Uphrades." One of the regular updates to the Online Companion of the 2009 reference guide The Essential Atlas placed the Uphrades system in the Inner Rim with grid coordinates M-8. Players in The Old Republic can choose to ignore the life signs of the survivors on Uphrades for dark side alignment points, but as the Knight is a Republic character and is therefore assumed to make the moral light side decisions, this article assumes that the Daybreaker sacrificed itself to reach the survivors and that they were eventually rescued.