Acrolis

"Silence follows in our wake."

- Motto of the Acrolian Star Defense Force

Acrolis (/æˈkrɑːˌlɪs/; a-KRAH-lihs) was a small, moon-sized terrestrial waterworld, minor Force nexus, and fortress world located in the Acrolis Cluster, a sparsely populated open star cluster situated in the coreward extremities of the Outer Rim's Hook Nebula. Home to the native near-Human Acrolians and a small population of baseline Humans, Acrolis served as the capital of the titular Acrolian Star Empire, a minor thalassocracy that governed the several dozen inhabited systems of the Acrolis Cluster and represented the Republic-aligned worlds of the Hook Nebula in the Galactic Senate.

As a terrestrial waterworld, Acrolis's surface was primarily dominated by expansive oceans intermittently punctuated at length by archipelagos and the occasional continent-sized island. The world was circumscribed within Mure, a planet-encompassing space station which took the form of a hollow trucated icosahedron frame. This construct was equipped with ray and particle shields capable of both resisting the high levels of gamma radiation that saturated the Acrolis Cluster and disintegrating asteroids drawn into Acrolis's gravity well from the vast debris field that littered the system.

On account of the Mure's unknown origins, Acrolis's unnaturally circular orbit around its sun, and the chemical composition of the planet's uncommonly dense inner core, the Acrolis system was theorized to have been an artificial construct of the Celestials, a prehistoric civilization of Force wielders responsible for many early feats of astroengineering. By 0 BBY, the Acrolis system was one of seventeen star systems categorized as potential Celestial constructs by Doctor Insmot Bowen, a pre-Republic specialist at the Obroan Institute for Archaeology.

Acrolis was enfolded into the Infinite Empire sometime after the Celestial-Rakata War and during the Rakata species's period of outward expansion from the Unknown Regions. The Rakata abandoned the planet during the civil war that accompanied their Infinite Empire's fall in 25,200 BBY, leaving the native Acrolian species as the planet's sole inhabitants. The Acrolians repurposed Rakata Force-powered technology like the Forcesaber and hyperdrive, spending subsequent millennia expanding their nascent Acrolian Star Empire throughout the Acrolis Cluster.

Though the galactic community did not explore the greater Hook Nebula until the Golden Age of the Old Republic, the Acrolians furtively observed the outside galaxy over millennia, and pursued membership in the Galactic Republic upon their eventual discovery. Acrolis represented the Hook Nebula's Republic-aligned worlds in the Senate, and its Planetary Security Force, the Acrolian Star Defense Force, supported the Fifteenth Army during the Clone Wars. Though nominally a part of the Galactic Empire, the Acrolian Star Empire quietly asserted its independence and withdrew from the galactic stage to its traditional holdings following the Battle of Endor.

For most of its recorded history, Acrolis was primarily populated by the native Acrolians, a red-eyed, onyx-skinned, near-Human species of Force-attuned shapeshifters. Though the Acrolians were a highly xenophobic species possessed of a distinct martial bent, their culture was highly refined and placed particular significance on the cultivation of the arts. The Acrolians shared their ancestral homeworld with a small diaspora of baseline Humans considered "honorary Acrolians," though the Acrolians prohibited most non-Acrolians from visiting their homeworld without sponsorship and restricted potential tourists to Acrolis's moon of Lune.

Uranography
Acrolis was the sole planet of the system of the same name, a remote star system that lay in the Hook Nebula sector of the Outer Rim Territories. The Acrolis system sat nestled deep within the Hook Nebula's Acrolis Cluster, a sparsely populated open star cluster situated coreward of the Aturi Cluster and rimward of the Hook Nebula's borders with the Sanbra and Juris sectors. Acrolis shared its sun, an unspectacular yellow G-type main sequence star, with an extensive asteroid field that constituted the remains of the system's four other worlds, and was itself orbited by Lune, a small, hydrostatically equilibrious moon that served as Acrolis's sole natural satellite. Acrolis rotated upon its own axis every twenty-four standard hours, and orbited its sun every three hundred and fifty standard days on average.

Acrolis was entirely circumscribed within Mure, a planet-encompassing space station lying in Acrolis's stratosphere that took the form of a hollow trucated icosahedron. Each of the thirty-two hexagonal and pentagonal gaps in its superstructure was filled with a combination of ray and particle shields that extended between the enclosing edges of the frame. These shields, though of an ancient design, were fully capable of resisting the high levels of gamma radiation that saturated the Acrolis Cluster, a byproduct of the cluster's high concentration of young stars. The shields were likewise strong enough to disintegrate wayward asteroids drawn into Acrolis's gravity well from the vast debris field that littered the Acrolis system.

Geology
Despite being a planetoid little bigger than a large moon, Acrolis exhibited standard gravity, defined as the surface gravity of a standard-sized terrestrial planet, on account of the unusually high density and uncommon chemical composition of its inner core. While most terrestrial worlds found throughout the galaxy possessed Iron(II) sulfide metallic cores primarily composed of Iron with trace amounts of sulfur and nickel, Acrolis possessed an inner core that included above-average percentages of denser metals like tungsten, cobalt, platinum, and gold that contributed to a higher density and surface gravity.

Acrolis's outer core was composed primarily of molten, highly conducive iron with small percentages of the aforementioned dense metals. The electric convection currents produced by this layer were responsible for generating the planet's magnetic field and magnetosphere. Sitting atop the core, Acrolis's mantle was primarily composed of high-iron silicate rocks rich in magnesium like olivine in addition to smaller percentages of pyroxene and calcium oxide and aluminum oxide minerals like plagioclase, spinel, and garnet. The planet's crust primarily consisted of dense sodium potassium-aluminum rocks like granite.

Geography
Like many terrestrial worlds suitable for life, Acrolis possessed a standard Type I atmosphere composed primarily of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogren, and trace amounts of argon, carbon dioxide, helium, methane, and xenon. However, unlike other worlds, Acrolis's atmosphere exhibited slightly higher percentages of oxygen than the usual twenty percent, leading to an atypical abundance of megafauna and megaflora in the planetary biosphere. Furthermore, on account of the expansive planetary oceans that covered eighty-seven percent of the planet's surface, Acrolis's atmosphere likewise evidenced higher percentages of water vapor than typically encountered on similar terrestrial worlds in the greater galaxy.

Acrolis's topography was primarily dominated by a series of liquid water oceans kept warm by both heat emanating from the mantle and planetary plate tectonics. The portion of the continental crust above sea level that constituted the planet's primary landmasses was primarily composed of fourteen continent-sized islands and a number of smaller archipelagos scattered across the planet's surface. Though the interiors of Acrolis's island continents were highly elevated, heavily mountainous, and home to dense patches of montane forests, their coastal regions were typically verdant and arable on account of the planet's unique system of air and ocean currents.

Biota
As a verdant Force nexus steeped in the Living Force, Acrolis was home to a wide variety of endemic flora and fauna, many of which exhibited some degree of connection to the Force. Some Acrolian xenobiologists posited that many of the more Forceful varieties of biota native to Acrolis were artificial creatures created by means of Rakata bioengineering during the planet's tenure as an Infinite Empire member world, though few records of the planet's early history survived the Infinite Empire's collapse in 25,200 BBY to corroborate such conjecture. Regardless, many xenobiologists attributed the Acrolian species's hereditary Force attunement to the presence of Forceful fauna and flora, as only those members of the species Force-attuned enough to outwit or escape kill Acrolis's Forceful predators and plants survived long enough to propagate their genetic distinctiveness to subsequent generations.

One of the more distinctive non-sentient megafauna of Acrolis was the Acrolian wildcat, a large keystone species of feline smilodon that hunted with the Force in a manner reminicent of the canine vornskrs of Myrkr. Though the wildcat's eyesight and sense of smell were undeveloped in comparison to other feline species, its use of the Force enabled to overcome these physical weaknesses, allowing it to "smell" its prey's Force aura even when concealed at a distance. A noctural persistence hunter that frequently hunted in packs, the Acrolian wildcat frequently stalked the mountainous inlands of Acrolis's island continents, sculking in the dark of the montane forests and occasionally venturing down to the coastlands.

Megafauna like the Acrolian wildcat were not the only lifeforms on Acrolis that employed the Force in some capacity. The planet's forests were likewise home to Forceful flora like the Flower of Lehon, a species of carnivorous plant capable of drawing unwary prey to its pincer arms and mandibles by means of a mild and unrefined version of the mind trick. The Acrolians eventually discovered that the poison glands the Flower used to incapacitate unwary prey could be applied to the development of neuropoisons and hallucinogenic recreational drugs, giving birth to a lucrative industry. The Flower likewise saw use as an interrogation tool, as the Acrolians discovered that the Force whisperings of multiple plants placed around a restrained prisoner were often enough to break even the most strong-minded of individuals.

A species of megaflora particularly sacred to the Acrolians was the whitewood, a large species of sequoioideae found in the interiors of Acrolis's continents that was so named for its birch-like silver bark. Trees of this species were found exclusively in the interiors of Acrolis's continents, frequently growing to heights of hundreds of standard meters and living for millennia. Like the Wroshyr trees of Kashyyyk, the whitewoods of Acrolis were theorized to have been the outcome of Rakata bioengineering and likewise came to host isolated Acrolian platform cities nestled in their branches.

2010 version
"So they're Romans...in space...but with James Bond?"

- A college friend of the author's on Acrolis, 2011

The fanon continuity to which Acrolis belongs constituted the author's earliest contribution to the Star Wars Fanon wiki. The planet, moon, system, and their respective inhabitants, culture, location, and history have evolved since the continuity's inception in late 2010 as the author both became better versed in the Star Wars Expanded Universe lore.

Though the names, locations, and details changed intermittently to more closely align with the author's evolving artistic vision, the basics of the story remained the same. In all versions, the planet, a small world with a single satellite (moon or space station) of its own, was always the sole planet of its system, with the other previous worlds reduced to a system-wide asteroid belt. Its isolationist inhabitants, generally onyx-skinned near-Humans with a predisposition towards both art and warfare, forbade most outsiders from living on their planet for religious or superstitious reasons, restricting them to the moon. The associated society was devised to share many similarities with the culture of the ancient Greek city-states, such as Athens or Corinth, augmented with elements from Roman culture.

In the pre-publication iteration of the article, the planet and its onyx-skinned, red-eyed near-Human inhabitants were both named "Acroyali," a reference to the Yanni song of the same name, and were situated in the Chommell sector in close proximity to Naboo. However, though the name was retained for the species, the planet's name was changed to "Acrolis" and moved further rimward of the Chommell into the Sanbra sector. The planet, inadvertently placed directly on Rugosa's canon location, served as the capital of a fanon sovereign state, the Acrolian Star Empire, that spanned the sector and a good portion of the Mid Rim and Outer Rim. This empire was formed when its parent system seceded from the Galactic Republic during or prior to the Clone Wars and took part in the conflicts and events of the Rise of the Empire era into the Legacy era.

2017 version
"I am not on board with this name change! >:O"

- I'm the Chosen One on the name changes introduced in the 2017 rewrite, 12/25/2017

However, with his return to Star Wars Fanon after a six-year absence, the author became disenchanted with certain parts of the Acrolis narrative. The idea that the Galactic Republic would simply roll over and accept the secession of a member world and turn a blind eye to its subsequent conquests of Republic-aligned systems strained belief and contradicted a fair bit of established Legends canon. Furthermore, the claim that an empire smaller than the Corporate Sector Authority could fight and win a war with the Galactic Empire in the heart of Imperial space and persist through that regime's reign likewise beggared belief.

As a result, the author scrapped the original version in favor of an updated, revised version in late 2017. Heavily influenced by the author's playthrough of The Old Republic and newfound interest in the old Sith Empire, this version moved Acrolis, now renamed "Azarac," from its previous position in the O-17 quadrant of the Outer Rim to the Tingel Arm's Wild Space region, placing it high above the galactic plane. Its Acroyali residents were retconned and made into an onyx-skinned subspecies of the Sith species called the "Tsis," descendants of Sith who had colonized the planet during its tenure as a Rakata Infinite Empire member world. The "overpowered" Acrolian Star Empire of the previous version was reduced to a small loose confederation of independent and insignificant worlds, the so-called Tsis Worlds.

2018 version
However, despite his renewed interest in exploring the Acrolis/Azarac concept on account of these changes, the author was dissatisfied with this revamp of the story, believing that it both violated certain elements of established Legends canon and deviated too far from the initial source material. As such, the author began a rewrite of the story in May 2018, incorporating some of the elements of the Azarac narrative while attempting to restore the spirit of the original Acrolis source. The end result of these adjustments was published in July of the same year.

In order to further nerf the Acrolian Star Empire/Tsis Worlds concept, the idea of the world's inhabitants forming a sector-spanning empire of galactic significance was scrapped in favor of a single system-state. The author retained the idea of a system located above the galactic plane, as it provided a worldbuilding challenge as to the manner in which a society might successfully colonize an intergalactic world bathed in high levels of extragalactic cosmic radiation. As such, the system's star, Ausrazibeti, was renamed the "North Star" and moved to a position directly above Galactic Center. The original explanation for the system's location in the Intergalactic Void was a prehistoric encounter with the Galactic Center black hole that propelled the system out of the galaxy at an angle perpendicular to the galactic plane, with subsequent adjustments to its placement made by the Celestials. However, subsequent revisions saw the entire system included as one of the seventeen fully artificial Celestial star systems mentioned in the Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare Author's Cut.

Due to its status as a fortified stronghold built atop the galaxy within a planet-encompassing space station, the author renamed the world from Azarac to Mure. This name was chosen for both its English meaning of "wall/enclosure" and its use in reference to the French town of La Mure, a commune named after the fortified hilltop upon which its medieval castle was built. Despite the host of changes, a number of alterations were likewise made to bring the Mure material back in line with the spirit of the original. Most notably, the Sith-blooded Tsis were reconned back to a distinct species called the Murese, who were once again portrayed more or less in line with the original Acroyali.

2021 version
However, subsequent revisions of the Mure version once again brought it further away from the original source material, introducing a vestigial Rakata tribe as part of its inclusion into the Rakatan Archipelago and including the world among those settled by Sith refugees of the old Sith Empire in the years following the post–Great Hyperspace War counterinvasion. Eventually, the author abandoned subsequent updates, focusing instead on fanon and fan fiction set in other time periods and continuities, and the Mure material was left derelict in an incomplete state until 2021.

Nostalgia being the drug that it is, the author was struck by a desire to return to the original material in 2021. The subsequent rewrite was a return to the naming conventions, lore, and placement of the original 2010 Acrolis, with a number of elements pulled from the subsequent two rewrites.

Awards and distinctions
The 2010 "Acrolis" version achieved Featured Article status on April 20, 2011. The 2010 "Acrolis" version was voted runner-up for "Best Celestial Object" in the Seventh Wiki Awards, and the 2017 "Azarac" version was voted "Best Planet" in the Thirteenth Wiki Awards.