Castle Serenno

Description

Perched on the edge of a sizable cliff on the planet Serenno, Castle Serenno was set apart on its own property. It was enhanced by three decorative gardens, each positioned at the front of the palace. Visitors to the estate would proceed along a lengthy path located between the gardens, leading to the palace's front. There, they would encounter the main tower, which stood at 120 meters in height and served as Count Dooku's primary workspace. Flanking the main tower were ten relay buildings. The tower itself featured a 22-meter-high stained glass window that offered a view of a sprawling city in the valley below. Additional buildings and defensive outposts clung to the cliff face. A double row of obelisks stood before the palace's main entrance. By the time the Clone Wars had begun, the palace and its surrounding estate were defended by legions of Separatist battle droids.

The palace's interior reflected Dooku's sophisticated preferences. The corridors were lavishly furnished with the finest decorations and fittings. Artwork sourced from across the galaxy adorned the walls, while statues from bygone eras stood silently. However, the opulence displayed for visiting dignitaries concealed the cells and torture chambers hidden deep within the cliff face, in the levels where Dooku conducted interrogations and executions. During the Clone Wars, Castle Serenno served as both the headquarters for House Serenno and a fortress for one of the Separatist's most important figures.

History

Late Republic Era

Dooku's birth occurred around 102 BBY. Upon discovering that his second son, Dooku, possessed force-sensitive abilities, Count Gora contacted the Jedi Order. He then abandoned the young boy in a forest near the palace, which was known to be inhabited by spine-wolves.

In 42 BBY, Count Ramil acquired the services of the Abyssin mercenaries who had been hired by the Great Houses of Serenno to protect them from pirates. He then ordered them to invade Serenno and its capital city, Carannia. While the Abyssins were seizing control of Serenno, Ramil remained in the palace with his droid army. He later departed to compel the insurgents fighting the mercenaries to surrender, aiming to resolve the situation on Serenno by eliminating all the Great Houses and falsely accusing Dooku of murdering his sister, Jenza. However, this plan failed, and Dooku killed Ramil. Subsequently, Dooku declared himself the new Count. After some persuasion, the Great Houses concurred and requested a summit. Following discussions about the summit's location, given the destruction of Carannia during the invasion, Dooku proposed holding the summit at Castle Serenno. The Great Houses agreed, and the summit took place at Castle Serenno.

Separatist Crisis

Around 23 BBY, LEP-10019 escorted Ventress from the palace's balcony to the palace's great hall, where Dooku was located. Ventress then met with Dooku. After he interrogated and tortured her with Force lightning for deceiving him about her intentions to assassinate him, he instructed her to locate Jenza, Dooku's sister. However, Ventress questioned the order, leading Dooku to torture her again using Force lightning. Dooku then tossed Data disks onto a table in front of Ventress and ordered her to begin her search in the Trannon district of the capital city, Carannia. Ventress complied and departed to fulfill the mission after Dooku cautioned her about the consequences of failure. After completing her mission, with Dooku rescuing her by eliminating the Republic agents who were attempting to remove Jenza from the planet, Ventress experienced a vision in which she was in the palace's great hall. She then observed Dooku at a table covered with scattered papers and data slates, an unusual sight for the count. Urged by the ghost of Jedi Master Ky Narec, she approached Dooku and overheard him muttering about why no one else could follow his commands. Ky Narec's ghost then questioned Ventress about her loyalty to Dooku. Just before Ventress could respond, another figure resembling the Dooku she knew stepped forward and verbally criticized Ky Narec's ghost for being a disappointment and a failure. Unable to bear Dooku's criticism of her former master, Ventress fled to a forest near Castle Serenno, filled with whispers of Ky Narec and Dooku, before being transported to the Outer Rim planet Rattatak in her vision.

Clone Wars

Early in the Clone Wars, an incident on the Colonies planet Cato Neimoidia resulted in the deaths of at least 3200 civilians. In response, Count Dooku broadcasted a message from his home, condemning the Republic and asserting Separatist innocence. At the conclusion of his broadcast, he challenged the Galactic Republic to send Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine to Cato Neimoidia to exonerate the Republic of any culpability.

In 20 BBY, Asajj Ventress, a former Sith assassin, and two other Nightsisters launched an assassination attempt on Count Dooku to avenge her former master's betrayal. Arriving on Serenno aboard a GS-100 salvage ship, the three Dathomirians infiltrated Dooku's palace and incapacitated him with a poison dart in his bedroom, blinding him and forcing him into a lightsaber duel throughout the castle. Despite their efforts, Ventress and her fellow Nightsisters failed, as Dooku struck all three of them with his Force lightning and hurled them through the main tower window. Mother Talzin then brought Savage Opress to the palace to become Dooku's new apprentice. Dooku taught Savage that his anger was a source of strength and that he had to harness it to succeed. He then dispatched him on a mission to Toydaria to capture King Katuunko.

Later, the criminal mastermind Moralo Eval constructed the Box, a structure designed to evaluate a group of bounty hunters in order to assemble a team to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, within the palace grounds.

Subsequently, Dooku summoned General Grievous to Serenno and instructed him to slaughter Ventress and the Nightsisters on Dathomir. Mother Talzin attempted to assassinate Dooku while he was in his base, causing him severe pain. However, he contacted Grievous via comlink and ordered him to eliminate Talzin, instructing the general to follow the green mist to locate her. Grievous rescued Dooku at the last moment. Believing that the Nightsisters had been destroyed, he turned his attention to his former apprentice Opress, who had betrayed him at Talzin's instigation. He summoned Grievous to his base and informed him that he could sense Opress growing stronger each day. Although Grievous dismissed the notion that his former apprentice posed a threat, Dooku asserted that he was a threat to everyone, including them, and that something sinister was emerging.

After the War

Following Dooku's death at the hands of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker during the Battle of Coruscant and the subsequent conclusion of the Clone Wars after Order 66 and the Proclamation of the New Order, the castle was deserted. At some point before 19 BBY, the nearby city was destroyed following an orbital bombardment conducted by the Galactic Empire, who then dispatched a task force to seize the castle and retrieve Dooku's war chest. The task force, consisting of over forty clone stormtroopers led by Captain "Wilco," cleared the palace of all valuables and loaded them onto three class four container transports for removal from the planet.

Clone Force 99, a unit that had gone rogue after the war and become mercenaries, disrupted the operation. They were hired by Ciddarin Scaleback, an information broker, to steal as much as possible. They successfully infiltrated the extraction site, but three members—Tech, Echo, and Omega—were trapped inside Transport Three when Wilco ordered its premature departure after spotting Force 99's leader, Hunter, lurking on the premises. The infiltration team attempted to escape the vessel using the escape pods, but the ship's crew ejected them to strand the thieves on board. To return to the planet, the team boarded a container and detached it from the ship, using its emergency re-entry thrusters as a landing pod. Meanwhile, Hunter and Wrecker were engaged by Wilco's men and forced to retreat into the palace basement through a hidden turbolift. Although the squad managed to escape the palace grounds, the detached containers spilled their contents on Serenno's surface, resulting in the loss of approximately 15% of the chest's treasure.

Behind the scenes

This location made its debut in "Nightsisters", the twelfth episode of the third season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a television series that aired on January 7, 2011. Jackson Sze created the concept art for the exterior of the main tower and relay towers of Castle Serenno for "The Box" episode in the fourth season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Jackson Sze also painted the nighttime view of Castle Serenno for the same episode. Molly Denmark developed the lighting concept for the palace used in the Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2 episode "Spoils of War".