#Hyperspace Mountain

[lucent-roase]

i went to disneyland recently so i decided to draw Hexsquad there, i will post more about this soon!

sorry for being inactive lately, i will try to post more often. just extremely busy with school and other parts of life, i’ll post more over the summer hopefully!

bonus: art project for school! it didn’t come out just right but oh well, my teacher won’t mind

[disnerland]

Get that Star Stuff.

Mostly in moomas but also in a MURPHY.

Go in way up and go MORE.

Will there be Mean Machine?

No. Not here.

He is dead.

[disneyparksattractionstournament]

Favorite Disney Parks Attraction Showdown: Round 1 - Group B2

Videos and propaganda under the cut!

Star Wars: Hyperspace Mountain: Disneyland Paris

Propaganda:

"You feel like you're a Rebel fighter on a mission against the Empire! You still get some of the exciting dark sections characteristic of Space Mountain, but it also makes effective use of the occasional screen and sound effects to sell the Star Wars experience. Also, unlike any of the other Space Mountains, it goes upside down!! A very fun experience."

Sinbad's Storybook Voyage: Tokyo DisneySea

[bb-holidaytravels]

Space Mountain gets you regardless how many times you’ve been on it… first pic is a week ago… 2nd pic is last year.

I was actually so shocked the first time I went on it in 2023, I was all set to compare it to Hyperspace Mountain in Paris but it’s is altogether different.

Both are thrill rides for sure but Space Mountain knocks you about a lot more and being able to see the structure and how close you get to it increases the fear factor making it one of my ultimate favourite rides.

Hyperspace Mountain will always have a place in my heart for being the first Disney ride I ever went on, for making me cry and for being Star Wars themed.

No matter what type of Mountain, you gotta love it (unless it’s expedition Everest… that ride makes me dizzy)

[acebirdofprey]

Have a photo from my holiday!!!

Star Tours and Hyperspace were my favourite rides at Disneyland.

[johnychen]

Space Mountain Hyperspace Mountain Overlay Front Seat Low Light 4K POV D...

[akirapolarbear]

Went to Disneyland and of course I decided to bring him with me ✨

[kaiserkisser]

ok sso chat what i learned today is that i might actually be an adrenaline junkie or smth

[countdown-til-sanders-take-over]

just had one of those moments where someone's like "what are you thinking about" and you either have to tell them that u were (very intensely) thinking about journey from the earth to the moon (in disneyland paris) or come up with a lie on the spot

Be unique Be yourself Be entirely enraptured by Discoveryland concept art

[bumpscosity]

No bc why overlay space mountain which has like the best soundtrack of any roller coaster ever

[redhoodieone]

The Batfamily & Y/N at Disneyland

*Alfred gets scared on the Jungle Cruise because he believed he really was in the jungle.*

Alfred: My word! Master Bruce, where are we?

Bruce: *sighs* We’re on a ride, Alfred.

*In Star Wars Land, Dick and Jason put on a theatrical performance of fighting with light sabers, and they even jump and flip over tables and buildings. Cast Members dressed up as Star Wars characters are stunned. The Cast Members dressed as Darth Vader and Kylo Ren actually approach the brothers and shake hands with them. Bruce gets pissed off at Dick and Jason when he finds out about their performance and has to pay Disneyland workers to not say anything to the press.*

*Y/N and Jason make out the entire time on the Haunted Mansion ride. Dick sat next to Damian, and he tried covering Damian’s eyes as much as he could so he wouldn’t be scared. Tim actually fell asleep on the ride.*

*When the Batboys and Y/N get Bruce to indulge with junk food, Bruce ends up eating like fifteen churros and pukes on Hyperspace Mountain. Luckily, the cleaning crew didn’t mind cleaning up after him and they even get a picture with him afterwards.*

*Damian insists he didn’t want a souvenir, and he “pretended to be annoyed” when Bruce bought him a Mickey Mouse plush doll, but he threatened Dick, Jason, and Tim to not touch it or even look at it.*

*Jason being the sweetest boyfriend ever and wearing matching Mickey Mouse ears with Y/N, and he didn’t even mind taking a hundred selfies throughout the day.*

*The Batboys fight over the front seats on the Incredicoaster. Bruce said Y/N wins and gets to sit up front, and chooses Jason to sit beside her. Dick and Tim sit behind them, and Bruce (no longer feeling sick) rides with Damian. All of them smile for the picture, and Alfred insists on buying it.*

*Dick whines and complains that the line to ride Peter Pan is too long.*

*Damian makes everyone ride the carousel three times, until Bruce bribes him with cotton candy and ice cream to let the others choose rides.*

*During the fireworks, Alfred rests with the bags of souvenirs while Damian sits on Bruce’s shoulders to see the fireworks better. Dick and Tim sit next to each other on the curb and watch the fireworks in amazement. Jason and Y/N ride more rides while most of the public is watching the fireworks show.*

[disneyparksattractionstournament]

Favorite Disney Parks Attraction Showdown: Round 2 - Group B

Videos and propaganda under the cut!

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: Disneyland, WDW Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris

Propaganda:

Disneyland version: "It has such an effective use of underground sections, especially when they're completely dark and give you the illusion of going even faster. The first one can catch you off guard, which makes it all the more effective! The canyon theming is gorgeous as always, and while there's a shorter town section, it's still fun to look at. The cave for the lift hill after the first dark section is also great and I love the use of water features in the ride"

Disney World version: Ok so this is a bit of a story. There was a doctor who noticed that lots of his patients had passed kidney stones after riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. So he and a collaborator rode on the ride a bunch of times while holding a backpack with a 3D printed kidney filled with urine and kidney stones. Amazingly, around 60% of the time when sitting in the back of the coaster, the stone would pass! The study also notes that other roller coasters in the park like the rock n roller coaster or space mountain did not have the same effect. You can read more about it here: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/09/for-kidney-health-roller-coaster-therapy/501278/

Star Wars: Hyperspace Mountain: Disneyland Paris

Propaganda:

"You feel like you're a Rebel fighter on a mission against the Empire! You still get some of the exciting dark sections characteristic of Space Mountain, but it also makes effective use of the occasional screen and sound effects to sell the Star Wars experience. Also, unlike any of the other Space Mountains, it goes upside down!! A very fun experience."

[jarenka]

I didn't want to start sunshine AU (yes, it has a name now!) without finishing a current fic, but I wrote down the first scene, since I've already came up with it. Ans then I translated it into English (well, google translated it, and I've made some changes, and @heretolurkandnothingmore kindly edited it). Here it is with a quick sketch of Anakin and Obi-Wan from this AU.

Since Laer laid between two mountain ranges, it didn't have its own spaceport. The nearest one was an hour and a half away, on an elongated coastal strip. Obi-Wan decided that they would land there and then ride a local airbus the rest of the way. The group him and Anakin were supervising only had seven older younglings, already past the age of needing constant supervision. 

As they made their way down to their designated spot, Anakin kept muttering that they should have picked a planet with a landing spot right next to the temple. He fit their ship neatly into a marked square on a concrete field between two other passenger ships of about the same size.

“There's a transit port in Laer,” Obi-Wan said. ”We could have landed there, but then you'd have to bring the ship back here and make the way back on your own. And on planets with landing spots near a temple there aren’t any hotels, theaters, or craft shops.”

“And I don’t think you're used to tents and dry rations anymore.” The words hang between them, unspoken.

”Don't be such a bore,” Anakin said. “Let me grumble a bit.”

“You're only thirty-five, it's a little early for you to become a grumpy old man.”

Their spot was not far from the passenger port building, so they got there on foot without waiting for a transportation platform. Obi-Wan walked ahead, and Anakin trailed the procession. 

Following the blue holographic arrows, Obi-Wan found the station - a large glass-walled building with three platforms, which airbuses approached one by one. The traffic was brisk, but Obi-Wan knew there weren't many flights to Laer. He went to the terminal to buy tickets only to find out that the next airbus wouldn't arrive for another hour. Obi-Wan sighed heavily. Jedi had been taught restraint and patience from an early age, but his wards still were just regular teenagers who had already spent thirteen hours in hyperspace, in the cramped quarters of a ship.

“All right, children,” Anakin said cheerfully as they stacked their suitcases by the row of chairs. “Who wants to come to the sea with me?”

“Can you make it there and back in an hour?” Obi-Wan asked.

Anakin silently pointed his finger at one of the glass walls. Just beyond it was a small square with benches and solitary, scattered palm trees, and behind the square laid a pink sandy beach.

“Yes, you can,” Obi-Wan decided.

Five of the seven younglings dropped their cloaks onto their chairs and followed Anakin toward the exit. 

“Why aren't you coming?” Obi-Wan asked the remaining two. He knew the answer to that, though. Lina Karras and Alvias Sa had been studying for the advanced math exam the whole trip, and now continued to sit engrossed in the flickering pages of formulas and math problems their teacher gave them. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he could solve those himself.

“We’ve got a test in three days,” Alvias Sa replied.

Obi-Wan knew that, too. Master Lokuta, who taught higher math, asked him to leave Alvias and Lina in the hotel on their test day. “Maybe they can take the test later,” proposed Obi-Wan. “I suggested it to them myself,” Master Lokuta replied.  “But they're stubborn. Don't want to fall behind the rest of the group.” They both shook their heads, having reached an understanding that some don’t want to take it easy even when they should. 

Leaving Lina and Alvias to keep an eye on their luggage, Obi-Wan bought himself and them each a glass of kaf. When he returned, his chair was already in a patch of light from the setting sun. 

The airbus station stood at the very edge of the spaceport, and its glass walls provided an amazing view of the picturesque landscapes of Celestia VI. On one side was the sea converging with the pale blue sky on the horizon, and on the other two sides were the speeder parking lot, the highway, and the mountain range that stretched along the seashore as far as the eye could see. On the green mountainside were sparsely arranged small villages. 

Obi-Wan looked at the weather forecast, found out that sunset would be in forty minutes local time, and opened the book. After the long hours he'd spent in the archives preparing for the trip, the only novels he'd read during the flight were the ones about a young woman from Coruscant who inherited a vineyard on Naboo (or an antique store on Alderaan, or a pottery workshop on Chandrila) from a childless distant relative and quit her annoying office job to find happiness in a new place. 

The protagonist just met a beautiful muscular neighbour* from the farm next door when the sunlight around Obi-Wan took on a warm orange hue. He tore his eyes away from the datapad. 

The haze in the air made the distant mountains lose all color and volume. They looked like flat silhouettes carved out of the yellowed sky. The sun hung above them in a large, blinding ball. Obi-Wan touched Lina and Alvias on the shoulder. 

“Stop studying and look at the sunset,” he said. They raised their heads reluctantly. 

“And don't make such faces,” Obi-Wan continued. ”Your math isn't going anywhere, and you won't see such a beautiful sunset again for a long time”. 

“Won't it be the same in Laer?” Alvias asked. “There are mountains there, too.” 

“Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But there are definitely no mountains on Coruscant.”

Lina didn't say anything. She had exchanged only a few lines with Alvias since they had left Coruscant, and the rest of the time she had either been studying or sleeping. Obi-Wan hoped she would brighten up in Laer. 

The sun had already slipped toward the mountains. It turned the peaks orange, the sparse wispy clouds around them looked like dark blotches in a glowing yellow halo. Human figures moved rapidly by the glass, all taking pictures of the sunset. Obi-Wan didn't take out his camera; the moment itself was enough for him. 

Soon the sun was gone from sight, but it still cut the sky over the mountains in yellow and orange rays. After a while, they too faded, and the entire landscape outside the glass wall turned a bluish hue. 

Obi-Wan glanced at the chrono - the sunset didn’t last long here. He threw a glance at Lina and Alvias and noticed that they were already looking at their datapads.

“I wonder if they watched the sunset or not…” 

Obi-Wan remembered that he himself, unlike Anakin, had paid no attention to the beauty of nature at the age of fourteen. It even seemed to him that admiration for sunsets, seas, forests and fields was an old man's trait. Maybe they thought so too. 

He picked up the book again to find out what the heroine was up to with her vineyard on Naboo and the attractive neighbor. 

Next time he was distracted by a figure that appeared nearby seemingly out of nowhere. Only when Obi-Wan looked up did he realize that Anakin hadn’t actually appeared out of nowhere, but was hidden by a line of people reaching for their airbus with the Travel Agency logo on it. 

“The sea is great,” Anakin said, turning to Lina and Alvias. “You should’ve gone with us.” 

“I doubt it's any different from other seas,” Lina said, taking a few moments to look away from her datapad. 

”Of course it's different. In some seas, you can't even touch the water without getting chemical burns.” 

Anakin's hair, which he neatly braided in the morning, was disheveled and frizzing more than usual because of the humidity. The cloak in his hands was covered in wet stains and sand. The younglings were talking excitedly, but the station was too noisy to discern the words. 

“Did you let them run barefoot on the beach?” Obi-Wan asked. 

“How did you know that?” 

“Judging by the state of your cloak, you wiped someone’s feet with it.” 

Anakin laughed. 

“It’s hard to hide anything from you.”

Obi-Wan pulled a light synthetic bag from his suitcase’s pocket and held it out to Anakin. 

“Put it in. We'll wash it at the hotel.” 

The airbus was still ten minutes away. 

*originally it was wlw space chick lit, but English doesn't have grammatical gender so it turned out to be ambiguous space chick lit.

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

The whole Star Wars universe is so insane actually it's making my head hurt

Putting aside the fact that the entire galaxy is interconnected via space travel with more cultures and societies than the human mind can comprehend, the history is so, so old. The spacefaring history of the galaxy goes 100,000 years into the past, that's twice as much as the time between today and the extinction of neanderthals. And look how long it took us to figure out space travel, the history of individual planets will be even older. Look how long ago before the movie timeline SWTOR takes place, and there's already so many ancient ruins. No matter how far back you go, there will always be something older. Lost cities, technology, cultures covering the surfaces of planets. Entire civilizations built on whalefalls they believe to be mountains. So many remains of space vessels scattered on planetary surfaces, and even more that were left to float through space forever, their crews long dead. The spaces between planets are vast and there is nothing that would allow corrosion and decay except the UV radiation from stars. Stray too far from regular hyperspace routes and you might encounter these ghosts.

The entire galaxy is a graveyard

[gallusrostromegalus]

Hinamori can drive? How did that come about? Is she a "must follow all the rules" driver or a "hold on for dear life" driver?

Momo's posting in the living world was in a more rural area and she got started driving her neighbor's tractor for him when he got hurt and she was bored, and then the farm truck and that was FUN on the little mountain roads, so she went and got a driver's license and managed to scrape together enough cash to buy her neighbor's 20 year old P.O.S. compact, and in the span of four months went from "what's a car?" To getting heavily into maybe-not-totally-legal vehicular modifications and earning herself the nickname "Peaches The Freak" on the illicit mountain rally racing circuit for "driving like she can't die".

She didn't actually tell anyone this when she got back to soul society because she was a bit embarrassed to be so enthusiastic about such a niche interest, so nobody finds out about HOW Momo drives until she's in the human world with her boss and her co-lieutenant, and they need to transport a large number of small objects at speed and the most reasonable way to do that is in the back of a car.

"what do you MEAN you don't know how to drive? Momo gapes at Shinji and Hiyori. "You were in the living world for a whole century?!"

"THEY GOT TRAINS EVERYWHERE IT DIDN'T COME UP!" Hiyori shouts. "ITS NOT LIKE YOU KNOW EITHER!"

"No, I do." Explains Momo, getting into the driver's seat of a Subaru old enough to vote. "That's why it's so strange to me."

"SHOTGUN!" Bellowed Hiyori, leaping into the passenger seat. "Okay, it's a little weird that *I* don't know how to drive, I guess, but do you really want mirror image dingus back there out driving on the wrong side of the road, do you?"

"I'm sure he'd get the hang of it eventually!" Said Momo. "Okay, seatbelts everyone! -and gas, mirrors, seat adjustment- who was driving this car, captain Komamura? Okay, check for cops-"

"What's a seatbelt?" Asked Shinji from the backseat.

"-and we're clear!" Momo said, putting her foot down and accelerating at a speed that made the buildings stretch and streak by like they were about to enter hyperspace.

One hour and six minutes later, they reached their destination, having reached a top speed of 193 mph, Hiyori discovering the female version of a terrorboner, and Shinji discovering what it feels like to be a lone sock in the washing machine during the spin cycle.

[gffa]

PLANET: ILUM Astronavigation Data: Ilum system, 7G sector, Unkonwn Regions Orbital Metrics: 1,078 days per year/66 hours per day Goverment: None Population: 5,200 (support crew 45%, temporary researchers 30%, military 20%, other 5%) Languages: None Terrain: Frozen lakes, mountains, ice steppes Major Cities: None Areas of Interest: Holenesh Canyon, Jedi Temple, excavation sites, various ruins Major Exports: Ilum crystals [Source: Star Wars - Force and Destiny - Nexus of Power - Force Worlds] BACKGROUND: Ilum is a small, obscure world located far out in the Unknown Regions. The fifth planet of the Ilum system, it orbits an exceedingly bright blue dwarf star called “Asar.” Surveys of the system by ancient Jedi scouts show a handful of uninhabited, inhospitable worlds that are either heavily ir­radiated, completely covered in ice, or both. The rest of the system is largely empty, with no asteroid belt and few navigation hazards. Due to its location in the Unknown Regions and its isolation from charted hyperspace lanes, nothing was known of the Ilum system until a wandering Jedi discovered it in the earliest days of the Republic.

Roughly equidistant from Asar and the system’s com­etary cloud, Ilum is the only world in the system that can support life. “Support” may be too strong a word for the relationship between Ilum and its flora and fauna, however. It is a large, terrestrial world orbited by two small moons and encircled by a wide set of rings made mostly of ice crystals. It is a land of broad continents, towering mountain ranges, and shallow seas locked in a perpetual ice age. Huge glaciers scour the planet’s face, slowly grind­ing the land flat. Where the glaciers have passed, deep snows or sheets of ice dozens of meters thick entomb the surface, making agriculture impossible. Ilum's few seas are shallow and broad, their waters choked with great floating ice mountains and thick sheets of drift ice. In addition to its frozen, snowbound landscape, Ilum has an atmosphere that is a near-constantly churning vortex of storms. High winds, sleet, thick snow, and freezing rain are to Ilum what gentle winds and soft rains are to Naboo.

Life, where it can survive, does so primarily along Ilum's equatorial region. Here, at least, the temperatures are only in the double digits below freezing, which has allowed a small number of native plants and animals to evolve. A few eke out an existence on the planet’s frozen surface, but most live either in the icy seas or deep beneath the ground in the uncounted thousands of kilometers of caverns and tunnels that worm through the planet’s crust. Savage gorgodons, cunning asharl panthers, and the terrifying razhak call Ilum home, along with hardy species of small rodents, birds, and worms. Alongside these are tough plants and fungi adapted to sub-zero temperatures, many of them completely undocumented.

LIFE ON ILUM: To date, no evidence has been found to suggest that sentient life ever evolved on Ilum. There are no ruins, nothing in the fossil record, and nothing recorded in the galaxy’s various ancient data­bases to suggest that Ilum was ever anything more than an obscure, uninhabited frozen rock. Indeed, the planet would have stayed that way until Asar burned itself out if the Jedi hadn’t come along and stumbled onto a discovery that would make it one of the most important places in the galaxy to that ancient order.

ILUM'S HISTORY: Ilum's recorded history begins tens of thousands of years ago with its discovery by a Jedi scout whose name is lost to history, performing Force-assisted hyperspace navigation. As the scout moved through the hyperspace lanes, she was drawn to the Unknown Regions by a particularly powerful resonance in the Force. Following the siren call of the Force resonance, the scout eventually discovered a lonely, hith­erto uncharted system in the far reaches of the Unknown Regions, centered around a bright, blue-white star. The Force was strong throughout the system, but there was something powerful, something special, on the fifth planet, and that's where the Jedi scout focused her attentions.

The first scout's initial reports, as well as those from sub sequent survey teams, reported a barren, windswept world of tall, jagged mountains and shallow, frozen seas locked away beneath dozens of meters of ice. No settlements or ancient ruins were discovered, and all evidence pointed to the world being devoid of sentient life. What the teams did find was a world that, despite its inhospitable environment, managed to support some plant and animal life. Packs of large felinoids stalked the planet's steppelands; huge, slow moving aquatic mammals thrived in the icy seas; powerful and aggressive humanoid reptiles haunted the many mountain chains; and plants and fungi clung to life in shel­tered spots away from the constant wind. These animals and plants didn't explain the planet's strong Force shadow, however. Its presence in the Force was enormous, a fact that the surveyors could not explain until one team was chased into a mountain cavern by dangerous creatures and discovered Ilum's real wealth.

Beneath Ilum's ice sheets and permafrost, the planet's crust is honeycombed by countless kilometers of interlock­ing cave systems. Within these caves, the escaping survey team discovered a motherlode of pontite, mephite, and other kyber crystals—the heart of a Jedi's lightsaber. The discovery of Ilum's mineral wealth quickly changed the char acter of Ilum's exploration from one of curiosity to one of grave importance to the Jedi Council. Upon receipt of the news that Ilum possessed an incredible wealth of kyber crys­tals, the Council immediately dispatched teams of scholars, artisans, and warriors to secure the world and to further study its natural wealth and importance to the Force. To pro tect the crystals, the Council made a decision to keep Ilum's existence a secret from the galaxy at large, and a number of steps were taken to ensure that it stayed that way. Hyperspace surveyors mapped out an uninterrupted, dedicated hyperspace lane from Metellos, a world in the Core region, straight to Ilum's orbit. The navigation of this route was so complex that a ship’s pilot needed to be at least sensitive to the Force, if not a fully trained Jedi Master, to even attempt it. In addition, all references to Ilum in official reports were quashed, and the world was even kept from local, sector­ wide, and galaxy star charts.

DARK LEGENDS: For thousands of years, the Jedi Order kept Ilum and its bounty secret and safe from harm. Generations of Jedi, from the greenest Padawans to the most ancient masters, traveled from all across the galaxy to search for crystals, study the planet and its connection to the Force, and enjoy the mental quiet of the uninhabited world. There is a nearly forgotten legend that speaks of a dark and violent time in the planet’s past, however. Ancient sources suggest that the Sith may have laid siege to the world, eventually taking possession of it for a time.

ENTWINED WITH THE JEDI: With Ilum secure, the exploration of the world and its con­nection to the Force was begun in earnest. Numerous settle ments were founded over the subsequent decades, typically near the sites of important scientific or Force-related dis­coveries. At places with a particularly powerful connection to the Force, the Jedi erected temples that served as train­ing centers or pilgrimage sites where members of the order could go to meditate and heal. In addition, thanks to the abundance of kyber crystals on the planet, the Jedi Council established a massive, baroque temple over the entrance to the largest and richest cavern complex the survey teams had discovered. Once it was completed, the council began sending Padawans to Ilum to harvest the crystal for their lightsaber and to undergo the important training rituals associated with lightsaber construction.

Countless Jedi over the millennia traveled there to build their first lightsaber or to find crystals to build new ones. Eventually, as other sources of kyber crystals were exhaust ed or became otherwise unavailable, Ilum became the Jedi’s sole source of these precious crystals. While the planet remained a place of great importance, the Jedi Council recalled those members who were living on Ilum and shuttered all their settlements and temples save for the main temple used for lightsaber construction. With the world’s inhabit­ants gone, its glaciers and ice sheets quickly consumed the Jedi settlements and research sites, burying them beneath dozens or hundreds of meters of ice. By the beginning of the Clone Wars, there were no permanent residents on Ilum, nor any real evidence that there ever had been, and the main temple stood empty, save for the occasional Jedi pilgrim there to find a new kyber crystal.

CRYSTAL CAVES: Home to perhaps the largest deposit of kyber crystals any­ where in the galaxy, Ilum’s crystal caves were said to be the Jedi’s most sacred place by none other than Jedi Master Yoda himself. Winding for countless kilometers through and beneath Ilum’s largest mountain range, the crystal caves were first explored in the ancient past. Within the labyrinth of corridors, shafts, tunnels, and chambers is a staggering wealth of the kyber crystals—mainly mephite and pontite— that make up the searing heart of every Jedi’s lightsaber. Within a few short years of the crystal caves’ discovery, the Jedi Order erected a temple over the entrance to protect the caverns from trespass and to provide shelter and train­ing facilities for visiting Jedi. The caves eventually became a pilgrimage destination for Jedi seeking crystals for new lightsabers and were incorporated into a Padawan coming-of-age ceremony called “the Gathering.”

The stone from which the crystal caves are carved is a smooth, black, basalt-like volcanic rock that absorbs light and is surprisingly easy to work with. The crystals themselves grow unimpeded from the walls and ceilings of the caverns and can occasionally be found littering the floors of corridors and chambers. In many places, the crystals can be removed from the surrounding stone by hand, and even the most stubborn, inaccessible crystal veins require only basic hand tools to excavate. It was this ease of excavation as much as the sheer quantity of crystal deposits that made the crystal caves so valuable to the Jedi.

Despite the millennia in which the Jedi lived and worked on Ilum and the planet’s importance to the order, surprisingly little of the crystal caves’ total area has been explored. Most of the known caverns lie within the boundaries of the temple’s training area, and those few charted areas outside of the temple’s footprint are a warren of dead-end caves, tunnels that turn in on themselves and either come to abrupt ends or plunge thousands of meters into dark cracks, and a confusion of chambers, side caves, and strange rock forma­tions. The sheer size of the cave complex is staggering, with some ancient survey records suggesting thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers of tunnels and caves stretching deep into the bowels of the planet. In addition, the Force tends to have a distressingly disorienting effect on visitors to the caverns. So powerful is the presence of the Force in the crystal caves that it causes vivid hallucinations in even the most guarded mind. This has led many an explorer astray; countless Jedi have wandered into the uncharted portions of the crystal caves in pursuit of some phantom, never to be heard from again.

JEDI RUINS: The Jedi worked and lived on Ilum for almost as long as they existed as an order. While they never established cit­ies there—it was too remote, too hard to reach, and too sacred to the Jedi for that—they did build scattered small settlements, research stations, temples, observation posts, and other structures on and beneath the planet’s surface. These abandoned sites lie scattered all across Ilum in various states of ruin.

Some are still intact, seemingly awaiting the return of their inhabitants; others are little more than rubble. Most, however, have been buried deep beneath the shifting gla­ciers and massive, slow-moving ice sheets that cover most of Ilum’s surface. Nevertheless, a number of interesting sites can still be found here and there in sheltered mountain passes, at the bottoms of valleys, or within Ilum’s labyrinthine cave systems. One such ruin is the settlement at Holenesh Canyon.

HOLENESH CANYON: Located some five hundred kilometers from the main Jedi Temple at the mouth of the crystal caves, Holenesh Canyon is a deep, sheer-sided cleft in the planet’s surface over a ki­lometer deep that runs for roughly ten kilometers through one of Ilum's vast mountain ranges. The settlement, once home to around one hundred sentients, was built near the canyon’s end in the shadow of the mountain range’s highest peaks. It was established millennia ago to study a strange fluctuation in the Force that seemed to occur only once every few hundred years. Named for the Jedi who first record­ed the anomaly, this small, isolated outpost stood for cen­turies before being destroyed in an avalanche triggered by a massive groundquake coinciding with the reappearance of the Force anomaly. Many of the settlement’s inhabitants were killed as they slept, but some managed to escape with little more than the clothes on their backs or what they could grab in their flight. Further seismic disturbances, combined with freak storms, prevented the mounting of a proper rescue mission, and by the time the Jedi were able to return to the canyon, the settlement was completely covered in snow and countless tons of fallen stone.

In the millennia since the destruction of the settlement, parts of it have been exposed through erosion and seismic activity. While the buildings are barely recognizable as such, their contents were surprisingly well preserved. Thanks to the remoteness of the ruined settlement and the difficulty of reaching it, precious little has been removed from the site. Anyone possessing the skills and courage to excavate the site might unearth any number of ancient Jedi relics.

CREATURES AND CHALLENGES: Ilum's climate is exceptionally harsh. Its land and most of its surface water are locked away beneath glaciers and permanent sheets of ice. Temperatures, even in what are usually considered temperate or tropical zones on other worlds, can sink to dozens of degrees below freezing. These temperatures are typically accompanied by howling gales and blizzards full of driving snow and ice shards. Few creatures, and even fewer plants, live on Ilum. To survive in these brutal conditions, Ilum's creatures and plants are both extremely hardy and extremely dangerous.

ASHARL PANTHER [RIVAL]: Asharl panthers are one of the more common predators on Ilum. They are large, aggressive, territorial felines that make their homes in Ilum's high northern and southern latitudes. Adult asharl panthers average between two and three meters long and stand roughly one meter high at the shoulder. Their four powerful legs end in two-toed feet equipped with nonretractable claws. The creatures’ bodies are covered in dense, smooth fur in shades of white, gray, and blue that holds their body heat in to protect them from the cold and driving wind. They have broad, earless heads with pronounced brow ridges, and their faces are remark­ ably expressive, with short, blunt snouts and golden eyes. The most noticeable feature is a pair of long, tentacle-like sensory organs that grow from their shoulders. Asharl panthers live in small family groups and typically hunt in pairs or in groups of four.

BLISMAL [MINION]: Blismal are small, furry, inoffensive rodents who live in the tunnels and caverns deep beneath Ilum's surface. About the size of a grown human’s hand, blismal have four legs; sharp featured faces with small black eyes, round ears, and long snouts; and short, hairless tails. Their bodies are covered in thick, luxurious, silvery fur that keeps them warm and sheds water and dirt. They feed mostly on cave fungus and insects, and they are happy to be left alone in the dark to live out their lives.

Like the harmless snowfeathers, which live on the surface, blismal have few natural predators. This is largely due to their speed and cautious natures, although they do have a frighteningly effective defense mechanism. When frightened, blismal make a shrill, painful, and sustained shrieking noise to ward off attackers and call for assistance from other blis­mal. When three or more blismal join in, they create a howl loud enough to shatter crystals and cause cave-ins, an ability that Jedi experienced firsthand long ago. The Jedi attributed this ability to the blismal’s close connection to the Force, and were able to counter the effects of the shrieking by manipulating the Force around the creatures. In doing so, Jedi exploring Ilum's cavern system were able to capture blismal, which turned out to be relatively easy to domesticate.

GORGODON [RIVAL]: Gorgodons are, perhaps, the most famous creatures to live on frozen Ilum. They are massive, non-sentient, thick-skinned reptilian creatures with long, powerful arms, short legs, and an axe-shaped head. A thick, shaggy coat of dark gray fur covers them from their shoulders to their feet, leaving only their head, which is a sickly orange color, bare to the elements. Gorgodons are incredibly strong and can with­ stand almost any punishment. It is said that they can even shrug off blaster bolts. They are a dangerous combination of dumb, aggressive, and brutal, and are one of the few animals that attack for no good reason. When the Jedi first arrived on Ilum, the gorgodons were the creatures that gave them the most trouble. Throughout the Jedi Order, the name of this creature was used in threats and curses, such as “thick as a gorgodon” or “as angry as a gorgodon’s mother.”

RAZHAK [NEMESIS]: Among the most fearsome predators on Ilum, these massive creatures are as agile as they are deadly. Averaging around eight meters in length, razhak-are armored, segmented, wormlike creatures that propel themselves using rippling muscle ridges. Their bodies are broad and flat, covered with thick, chitinous plates in shades of white and blue. While they have no apparent eyes, their heads are topped with long, segmented antennae that serve as sensory organs. Their huge mouths feature multiple rows of serrated teeth.

Aggressive and solitary, razhak live in the endless tunnel systems beneath Ilum's surface. They are deceptively fast and, when they attack, they rear up like a serpent and at­ tempt to swallow prey whole. Anything they can’t eat in one bite they tear into pieces by grasping it in their mouth and shaking it violently. In addition to possessing great speed and a savage de­meanor, razhak also can generate intense heat strong enough to rapidly melt solid ice and cause serious burns to exposed flesh. This ability allows them to tunnel through ice as though it were soft sand. Razhak usually build their nests inside of ice walls or densely packed snow, typically leaving the nest only to eat or mate.

Thankfully, while they are terrifying to behold and extremely dangerous, razhak are also easily distracted and creatures of minimal intelligence. Keeping this in mind, a clever opponent can easily outflank them, lead them into traps, or make them lose interest in attacking altogether.

SNOWFEATHER [MINION]: Snowfeathers are small, clever, flightless birds native to Ilum. Their bodies are covered in a dense layer of oily, white feathers that protects them from Ilum's bone-chilling cold and vicious weather. Relatively harmless creatures, they live in nesting colonies built into ice shelves or cliff faces.

Despite their inoffensive nature and inability to fly, snowfeathers have few natural predators, for two reasons. First, their meat tastes terrible and is mildly poisonous, causing painful cramps, bloating, and loosening of the bowels in those unfortunate enough to eat them. Second, they have a connection to the Force that gives them the ability to project an illusion that makes them seem larger and more formidable than they really are. These characteristics have allowed them to survive and even thrive on an inhospitable planet full of savage creatures like gorgodons and asharl panthers.