The city known as Ta'a Chume'Dan functioned as the administrative capital within the Hapes Consortium. Although relatively small, housing only a few hundred thousand residents and characterized by its tidiness, it served as the central hub for governmental, commercial, and legal operations across the entire Hapes Cluster. This was due to legal requirements mandating that all significant business transactions occur on Hapes itself. To accommodate the high volume of starships, the city featured adaptable landing platforms.
In the Hapan language, Ta'a Chume'Dan translates to "Queen Mother's Residence," with the royal palace being the city's most striking feature. This palace, a castle reminiscent of a fairy tale, was situated atop a prominent black basalt crag. The palace served as a crucial symbol representing the grandeur and authority of the monarchy to the administrators and bureaucrats of the population, mirroring Ta'a Chume'Dan's symbolic and administrative importance to the Consortium's worlds.
Due to the Hapans' isolationist tendencies, New Republic sources presented conflicting accounts regarding the palace overlooking the city. Some identified it as the Fountain Palace, while others believed it to be Star Home, a lavish interstellar vessel meticulously designed as a replica of the royal palace. However, it is more probable that the original Fountain Palace was located in Ta'a Chume'Dan, and it is almost certain that Lorell Hall was also situated on the same cliffs.
Cracken's Threat Dossier, which was the first source to mention Ta'a Chume'Dan and Star Home, suggests that the royal spaceship is the structure that dominates the capital. However, the Fountain Palace is mentioned in The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse, The New Jedi Order: Dark Journey, and most recently and explicitly, Hapes: Ladies First.
Similarly, there is disagreement among sources regarding the precise meaning of the capital's name. Cracken's Threat Dossier interpreted Ta'a Chume as the hereditary Hapan title held by all Hapan Queen Mothers, whereas more recent sources have treated it as the royal style of a specific Queen Mother who reigned during the Galactic Civil War. If this is the case, the capital's name would change with each new reign, potentially becoming Teneniel Chume'Dan and then Tenel Ka Chume'Dan during the reigns of Teneniel Djo and Tenel Ka Djo, respectively.
This could explain why Dark Journey simply refers to the capital as "the royal city," which can be interpreted as a loose translation of Chume'Dan.