The Hutt Cataclysms represent a period of internal conflict for the Hutt species, a civil war concluding roughly around 15,000 BBY. While the precise origins of this conflict remain obscure, its impact was devastating across Hutt Space, transforming the Hutt homeworld of Varl, along with other long-standing Hutt settlements, into barren, desolate landscapes. In response, the Hutts formed a Council of Elders to mitigate the risk of clan disputes escalating into open warfare. They also adopted a novel ideology known as the kajidic, which promoted intense competition among clans as a means of identifying and eliminating weakness within the species.
This new philosophy eschewed outright warfare and territorial expansion, viewing them as tactics employed by inferior species. Rather than employing their slave forces to conquer Humans as they had previously done, the Hutts opted for a strategy of internal manipulation and control, favoring the enslavement of less significant species. The Hutts then moved to Evocar, renaming it Nal Hutta, and established the Council of Elders there to act as representatives of the Hutt clans. The Council's rulings were binding on any Hutt asserting clan membership, effectively preventing internal rivalries from reaching levels of excessive destruction.