The Marasans were a race of sentient beings native to the world of Marasai, situated far inside the Marasa Nebula. A defining characteristic of their species was the prevalent use of cybernetic augmentations.
The Marasans evolved from sizable, plant-eating marsupials. Their physical features included diminutive eyes, complemented by a pair of sensory stalks that sprouted from the vicinity of their expansive mouths. They possessed elongated, slender arms, squat, robust legs, and abbreviated tails. A readily identifiable trait was the slender, silvery band of cybernetic components that encircled the back of their craniums.
To successfully navigate the thirteen star systems within the Marasa Nebula, highly advanced navigation systems were essential. Marasan navigators established direct neural connections to their navigation computers, identifying "anchorpoints" within the nebula to facilitate their journeys. The adoption of these implants became widespread throughout Marasan society, with the vast majority utilizing implanted computers in their everyday lives. Beyond astrogation, these computers empowered them to tackle intricate problems with double the speed of other species, command mindless automatons that carried out diverse functions, and engage in silent communication with one another within a range of one hundred meters.
The Marasan form of governance consisted of elected officials, known as Electnodes, whose implanted computers were interconnected with both their constituents and each other via a network called the Mindnet. Their leader, the Grand Daern, gathered and processed information from each Electnode to inform decision-making. Due to the Electnodes' immediate access to communication and rapid data processing capabilities, their government operated with considerable efficiency.
However, the rapid processing speed of these implants did result in some adverse consequences: their propensity to think at a faster rate than they could physically move resulted in clumsiness. Their reliance on cybernetic communication often led to garbled speech, particularly given the disparity between their thought speed and their speaking speed. When conversing with non-Marasans, they could sometimes appear insensitive, or at the very least eccentric, as they would initiate speaking before fully formulating their thoughts.
The location of their home within the Marasa Nebula effectively concealed them from the rest of the galaxy, as the nebula's energized gases compelled the Trellen Trade Route to completely bypass the region. In isolation, the Marasans cultivated a peaceful society on their planet, developing sophisticated mathematics to comprehend the occasionally peculiar weather patterns of a world situated within a cosmic storm. Mathematics soon paved the way for advanced technology, including hyperdrives that enabled their starships to traverse the surrounding nebula.
The Marasans' isolation came to an end when the Galactic Empire dispatched probe droids into the nebula, seeking mineral resources and a potential shortcut for the Trellen Trade Route. Upon discovering an advanced civilization, the Empire resolved to compel the Marasans to assist them. Conventional methods of coercion yielded inconsistent results, and the protein-based bio-memory systems within their computers made it challenging for Imperial scientists to simply replicate Marasan astrogational technology. Instead, Imperial engineer Umak Leth conceived of devices known as "resonators" that disrupted the Marasans' implanted computers, inflicting immense pain. These weapons ranged in scale from handheld devices capable of incapacitating a single Marasan to siege weapons capable of torturing an entire Marasan planet. The Marasan Mindnet was forced to surrender and was stripped of its authority.
Of the twelve billion Marasans who lived before the Imperial conquest, only a few hundred managed to evade Imperial capture and seek assistance for their people. Grand Daern Derra'makin remained within the Marasa Nebula, going into hiding on one of the colony worlds. The Alliance to Restore the Republic became aware of their predicament early in the Galactic Civil War, but they were unsure how to provide assistance without subjecting the entire Marasan species to collective punishment.