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Yavin 4
An inhabitable moon of Yavin, it has a lush, tropical ecology
which supports an abundance of life. It was home to the extinct Massassi race,
which was subjugated by Exar Kun some 4,000 years before the Battle of Endor.
The Massassi built huge temples in the jungles to focus the Dark Side energies
Kun commanded. During the Great Sith War, Yavin 4 was where Kun made his final
stand, draining the life energies of the Massassi to preserve his spirit despite
the death of his flesh. The resulting clash of Force energies sparked huge
forest fires that ravaged the jungles. When Ulic Qel-Droma returned several
years after the war, the jungles were still barren of life. Over the millennia,
however, life did return to the moon, and its jungles flourished. When the
Alliance built their first main base, they chose Yavin 4 as an out-of-the-way
location. Following the destruction of Alderaan and Princess Leia's rescue from
the first Death Star, the Empire discovered the base's location and tried to
destroy it. The Alliance's star fighters, led by Luke Skywalker, destroyed the
station before it could fire on the moon. However, debris from the first Death
Star rained down on Yavin 4 for months, touching off forest fires and laying
waste to vast portions of the planet. The destruction was much less than that
resulting from the Sith War, and much of the Alliance base remained intact. Mon
Mothma and Leia Organa-Solo chose Yavin 4 as the site for Luke Skywalker's Jedi
praxeum. The average day on Yavin 4 lasts 24 standard hours, and it circles
Yavin three times every Coruscant standard year. The moon has four major
landmasses separated by six interconnected oceans. Note that Yavin 4 has its own
moon. Yavin Four is described as the base of operations for the new government
forming out of the Alliance, following the death of Emperor Palpatine at Endor.
Thousands of years before the Galactic Civil War, Yavin 4 was a barren, cold
ball of rock. The ancient Jedi created the lush, tropical environment, with a
6-month dry/6-month wet seasonal cycle, by building a weather and climate
control center.
