Bethlamore: History

Pre-History

Bethlamore's history of inhabitation dates back to roughly 32,000 BBY, when the Infinite Empire of the Rakata stumbled across the barren, lifeless planet and begin to terraform it. Once habitable, they colonized Bethlamore and began growing great jungles and building monuments to their power, including a strange, experimental stargate in the Ayrid Hai River Valley sometime near 30,000 BBY. They abandoned it circa 25,200 BBY, the era in which the Infinite Empire collapsed due to a plague and civil war. The plague and the war left Bethlamore scarred, destroying the majority of the Rakatan constructions and much of the world's jungles.

For the next twenty millenia, life on the world struggled on, untouched by sentient beings. Around 5,500 BBY, some Sith came to Bethlamore through the Rakatan gate which linked Bethlamore to the Sith world of Carrackoon. The Sith built a shrine around the gate, and attempted to colonize the harsh, ruined world. But they failed, their colonies barely lasting 150 years. Once again the world of Bethlamore was left uninhabited by anything more than the struggling flora and fauna left by the Rakata.

Rediscovery

In 3,914 BBY, approximately 1,500 years after the Sith colonies failed, an Ithorian herdship lost in Hyperspace is yanked out of Hyperspace in the Baphomet system. Impressed by the two terrestrial planets in the system, Bethlamore and Eden, they trace their way back and return to Ithor to tell their people about this wonderful world. After some short debate, the Ithorians decide to keep the existence of the system a secret. They returned to Bethlamore and Eden to begin terraforming and colonizing the two worlds. They introduce various species of flora and fauna from across the galaxy, including Ithor, to the jungles of Bethlamore, as well as some specially engineered species. They tend to the jungles, letting them grow and florish.

Roughly 100 years later, non-Ithorian fringers and explorers come across the system as well, and they return to charted space to tell of the wonders of Eden and the now-florishing jungles of Bethlamore. Colonists begin to trickle into the system, much to the Ithorians abhorrence, and begin to settle at the northern end of the Ayrid Hai River Valley, at the foot of Mount Ayrid. The community that forms at the foot of Mount Ayrid would later become Sytas, the site of which is now the Ayrid Hai Spaceport.

After observing and tending to the jungles of Bethlamore for over 400 years, the Ithorians ember a specially constructed herdship, the Mother Jungle, into the crust of Bethlamore in the Ayrid Hai River Valley. The herdship is seeded with native flora and fauna from Ithor, and more genetically engineering flora and fauna they had designed to complement Bethlamore's evolving ecosystem. They hoped that the genetically engineering species they introduced would allow the native Ithorian species to integrate into the ecosystem better. For the most part, they were right, though bafforr trees failed for the most part, except in the Great Jungle region in the lower Ayrid Hai valley. The Ithorians continued to tend to the jungles, helping the new species grow and evolve. The ecosystem balanced, and for the first time since the Rakata, the entire surface of Bethlamore was florishing with life.

For the next two millenia, life was good on Bethlamore. The colonies grew and the population increased in size, until somewhere around 2,000 BBY the city of Sytas emerged as a florishing metropolis. However, a darkside cult leader by the name of Driasdan came into the public eye around the same time. He gathered up groups of Force sensitives into his cult and disappeared with them into the jungle. This cult, the Sircledemor (Circle of Death in Olys Corellisi), fell out of the public eye for nearly 600 years, until they re-emerged during Sith rule.

Sith Rule

Three Sith, pursued by Jedi forces, fled from the fringes of Sith Imperial space. They lost the Jedi pursuit by making a blind jump, but their jump yanked them out of Hyperspace in Bethlamore's gravity wells. The small fleet of the Sith, which was made up of their warships and their slave transports, crashed into the surface of Bethlamore, in the Ayrid Hai valley. The survivors, including the three Sith themselves, abandoned their craft, salvaging them so that they could begin settling on the planet. Each Sith founded a kingdom and declared his or her self Dark Lord/Lady.

Because of this, the three Sith descended into in-fighting and began warring against each other. The smaller of the two kingdoms united together to attempt the utter destruction of Adhe Zion's kingdom, the largest of the three, which captured and ravaged the city of Sytas in 1,483 BBY. They failed, though Adhe Zion's empire split in half when the heir and his younger brother both attempted to seize power after murdering their father. The wars eventually embroiled most of the southern continent, resulting in the Sith taking the Ithorians and the colonists as slaves.

Nearly 100 years after the three Sith crashed on Bethlamore, the Sircledemor emerged from the deep jungles and declared war on the Sith kingdoms. The four kingdoms fought each other as well as the Sircledemor during this period, though the primitive cult took most of the damage and losses in this conflict. The wars between the Sith and the Sircledemor raged for almost 100 years, by the end of which the Sircledemort were mostly enslaved by the Sith and the cult is thought to have ceased existing.

The wars continued, lasting over four centuries after the Sith's arrival. Finally, a single warlord, Herite Zion-Callas, was born to the rulers of two of the kingdoms, both descended from Adhe Zion's original kingdom. He united his families two kingdoms and went on a war spree, dominating the remaining two kingdoms and uniting the Sith on Bethlamore under one flag. With an iron fist, his dark rule lasted for a quarter century, until the Army of Light came...

Army of Light

Herite made it a priority after taking power to assemble the remnants of the crashed starships on Bethlamore to have them studied and reverse engineered. Along with parts and knowledge taken from the ruins of Sytas, he constructed a small fleet of warship. Satisfied, he sent out a scout to make contact with the outside galaxy again. The scout indeed made contact: they reached Sith space in a warzone. The scout had hypered into a battle between the Brotherhood of Darkness and the Army of Light. The Brotherhood of Darkness told the scout to summon his master, and he did. Herite returned a day later with his ragtag fleet to find the battle over, the Brotherhood momentarily victorious. The leader of the Brotherhood, Lord Kaan, drafted the Bethlamorian Sith into his order by force, and commandeered Herite's fleet. Herite, disgraced, returned to Bethlamore.

However a Jedi strike force led by Lord Hoth, sensing weakness in a Sith member world, attacked Bethlamore. The advanced ships of the Army of Light easily tore through the ragtag defense fleet which had secured Bethlamore, making their way towards the surface. Lord Herite and his relatively primitive defenders fought to the last, arming themselves with alchemically-enhanced blades and what few lightsabers they had. They were soundly defeated by the more advanced forces of Lord Hoth and his Army of Light. Herite himself fought to the last, eventually defeated in one-on-one combat with Hoth.

The remaining Sith, mostly minor dark side priests and warriors, fled into the jungles where the Sircledemor had once hid, laying in wait. The Army of Light secured Herite's capital, which was based around the Great Temple of Adhe Zion, and freed his surviving slaves. The Jedi forces went through the jungle and razed most of the Sith temples and shrines, though there were some which they refused to touch, such as Herite's Temple of the Shadow Vines. Satisfied that Bethlamore was secure, they began converting the Temple of Adhe Zion into a Jedi stronghold.

The freed slaves went on to start constructing the cities of Adiemus and Ayrid Hai, with help from the Jedi and the weakened Galactic Republic. They become a Republic colony, and begin the process of rebuilding after the long period of Sith rule. The Jedi which the Army of Light leave behind decide at this time to form an academy of the Force in the temple they have taken as their base.

Membership in the Republic

By 1,000 BBY the cities of Ayrid Hai and Adiemus were well established: Adiemus becoming the colonial capital, while Ayrid Hai set itself up as a spaceport and started to attract new colonists to Bethlamore. The two cities grew and florished over the next few centuries, attracting more and more people to the Ithorian garden world. Meanwhile, the Jedi and the Ithorian tried to get a handle on the runaway evolution of Bethlamore. They attempted to remove and reverse the taint of the Sith on the environment, though they were not entirely successful. These first few centuries were a golden age for Bethlamore, with the Jedi and Ithorians discovering new medicinel and therapeutic uses for the world's unique flora and fauna.

952 BBY marked a milestone, as the Ithorian-dominated government of the Republican Colony of Bethlamore was dissolved, a constitution was written and approved, and open elections for the new government, the Federation of Bethlamorian States, were held. The new government was still Ithorian-dominated, but less so than the colonial government. The first achievements of the new government included designating large portions of Bethlamore's unscathed jungle as federal reserves and creating a strong safety net for its peoples, with healthcare for all, unemployment benefits for those out of work, pensions for the elderly, et cetera.

Over 500 years after the liberation of Bethlamore from Sith rule, the Jedi Order removed most of its presence from Bethlamore and shut down their training academy in the Temple of Adhe Zion. Only a single Jedi was left at the temple, and he took on an apprentice, to whom he passed stewardship of the temple and Bethlamore. This Jedi tradition continued for nearly 300 years before the Order removed the last steward from Bethlamore, thus leaving the temple abandoned.

Also around the same time, the Ithorian population was finally outnumbered by the non-Ithorian population. The Ithorians still remained the largest percentage of the population for another 400 years, when humans surpassed them to become the largest portion of the population by a small margin. The consequences of this took several years to become evident, but eventually the Ithorian stranglehold on the government was broken. After this era, the government of Bethlamore took a swing to conservative politics, rolling back many of the safety net programs established with the Federation.

By the last century prior to the Clone Wars, the Federation of Bethlamorian States had taken a turn towards moderate politics: some years the liberals ruled, some years the conservative parties ruled, but most of the time the government was formed by coalitions between one-sided or the other and the moderate parties. Some of the old safety net programs were restored, but not many. Bethlamore's golden age ended around this time, and unrest was flowing through the veins of the population. The Sytas Uprising took place in the Ayrid Hai Spaceport 50 years before the Clone Wars resulted in the deaths of 30 sentients, mostly illegal immigrants, who were protesting Bethlamore's strict immigration laws. Because of this and several other incidents, the Federation eventually relaxed their immigration laws. By the Clone Wars, they had one of the largest refugee to citizen ratio in the Republic, and had one of the easiest naturalization programs in their sector.

Clone Wars

Before the War

By the start of the Clone Wars, Bethlamore's conservative parties had solidly seized control with a special election in 24 BBY, followed by accusations of rigged elections, The planet was polarized and on the brink of civil war, the two coalitions trading barbs at each other and deadlocking legislation with filibusters while they began arming private militias in secret. The situation was highly tense by 22 BBY, with the conservative government in talks with the Confederacy of Independent Systems to leave the Republic and join the Seperatists. If the relations between the two parties were bad before the start of the wars, the weeks after the Battle of Geonosis made the tensions even worse.

The situation reached crisis level in 21 BBY, when the government closing its borders to any further refugees, and forcing out pro-Republic refugees who had fled Seperatist worlds after they withdrew from the Republic. The liberals, infuriated by this move, used their militias to attempt to force the prime Minister out of office. Using this as an excuse to crack down on civil liberties and withdraw from the Republic: they declared martial law and seceded from the Republic. Joining up with Count Dooku's fledging Confederacy, they worked on tracking down and imprisoning the liberal leaders they believed responsible for the assassination attempt. The liberal coalition mostly got their leaders out of harms way and fled to to nearby Republic-held world of Corona with the majority of the Bethlamorian Rangers and portions of the Planetary Security Agency.

On Corona, the Republic helped set up a pro-Republic government-in-exile, and further armed the coalition militas. The Confederacy moved a droid army, commanded by rogue Jedi Master Carius Dali and rogue Jedi Padawan Jace Starkiller, onto Bethlamore. The two Seperatist commanders began a campaign to take the other worlds of the Greeop Sector due to their close proximity to the Rimma Trade Route. For a month the Seperatist offensive in the Greeop Sector went mostly unchecked, until the Republic counteroffensive which slowly forced the Seperatists back to Bethlamore. The Bethlamorian Civil War officially began on the 14:8:4 when the Grand Army of the Republic, led by Jedi Knight Lucius Aurelius and Jedi Padawan Garrett Starkiller, landed near the capital, Adiemus, with forces from the government-in-exile, the Bethlamorian Confederation.

Beginning of the Bethlamorian Civil War

Once planet-side they joined up with local liberal and pro-Republic militias, and began recruiting for allies in Ayrid Hai's underworld. The main militia, the People's Liberation Army of Bethlamore, becomes the Bethlamorian Confederation's main army. The PLAB, along with the GAR, fire the first shots of the war when they moved on Adiemus the same day as their landing. The battle for Adiemus lasted three days, and ended with the Clone troops and the pro-Republic forces taking the city. The resolution of the battle was immediately followed by a Seperatist counter-attack, one which was easily resolved within 24 hours. Adiemus had overthrown its Confederate masters and was securely in Republican control: the occupation was a popular one with the largely pro-Republican residents of Adiemus.

The next attack was a two-prong attack from the outer edges of the system to attempt to control the space around Bethlamore. The Republic and the Seperatists battled for control of the Baphomet system for 28 hours, after which the Seperatist fleet withdrew to lick its wounds. The Grand Army of the Republic launched a second planet-side attack, this time on the Takoi Province. Fighting there was fierce, lasting a month before the province was securely under Republic control. There was a two week lull in combat planetside, during which the Seperatist fleet attempted multiple times to pry control of the Baphomet system from the Republic.

In Ayrid Hai, the Luto Crime Family was wrestling for control of the spaceports busy underworld for the Republic. Alongside a rebel cell suppied and funded by the People's Liberation Army, the Luto family was doing an excellent job in seizing more territory for their operations and destabilizing the pro-Confederate governments new capital. Soon they made their first major move, essentially taking control of Idlewood and the Port Town's so-called "Black Sector". Signaling to their Republic masters to move on the spaceport, the Luto Crime Family waited for the anarchy of combat so they could dominate illegal activity in the spaceport...

Operation Deep Jungle

Those two weeks of on and off space combat were hell for the Republic's naval forces, but by the end of it all, they had resecured their control over the Baphomet system. Taking another week to regroup, they fended off minor Seperatist offensives aimed at their holdings of Adiemus and the Takoi Province. Deciding the time was right, Jedi General Lucius Aurelius revealed his plan for taking the strategic, both in military and morale, Ayrid Hai Spaceport. He called this plan Operation Deep Jungle, and it involved an invasion corridor that ran up the Ayrid Hai River Valley, through the Ty'Rae Province, along the western bank of the Ayrid Hai River to the crossing near the Temple of Adhe Zion. According to the plan, they would take the temple and move north along the South Road to Ayrid Hai, where they would capture the city.

At the end of their week of regrouping they started making their way north, meeting resistance at Adiemus' northern borders. Easily breaking through Seperatist lines, they started fighting their way north, using air strikes to clear the path ahead of the heaviest resistance. Within a week they had crossed through the Gap of Moda, after which they easily passed through the Alyssian Fields, only meeting minor resistance until they entered the Great Jungle. Once inside the Great Jungle they were brutally attacked by droid forces, forcing them back into the Alyssian Fields. For two days they battled, until finally they broke through Seperatist lines and made their way into the Great Jungle.

They moved north for a whole day with no resistance, until that night the Republic forces and the Bethlamorian rebels hit Galard Hill, another Seperatist/Bethlamorian government line, engaging them in battle for a full three days. Once victorious, the Republic-aligned forces paused for a day to rest and resupply. That night they were again attacked by the droid armies, forcing them back several miles. The Seperatists refortified the position, but the GAR and their allies attacked again, and broke through within the day. Again they moved north, meeting little resistance they couldn't handle for the 3 day trip up the river, moving along the banks of the Ayrid Hai.

Timeline of Bethlamore

• c. 32,000 BBY:
  • The Rakata stumble across Bethlamore, a lifeless world with large, oxygen-rich seas. They jumpstart the processes of life, and begin terraforming Bethlamore into a florishing jungle world.
• c. 30,000 BBY:
  • Theories commonly hold that during this time period the Infinite Empire of the Rakata built an experimental gate connecting Carrackoon, a world on the opposite side of the galaxy, with Bethlamore.
• c. 25,200 BBY:
  • Bethlamore is abandoned during the plague and civil war which rips through the Infinite Empire, but not before the Rakata, as well as the flora and fauna of Bethlamore, are infected. The planet and it's jungles survive, but barely. Life struggles onward, untampered, for the next twenty millenia.
• c. 5,500 BBY:
  • It is theorized that, around this time, the ancient Sith species stumbles across Bethlamore by accident, using a gate built by an ancient race which links the Sith world of Carrackoon with Bethlamore. The two worlds are on opposite sides of the galaxy. They build a shrine around the gate, which would later become the location of a Sith temple.
  • The Sith colonize Bethlamore, tending to the jungles for a time before the harsh life on Bethlamore wipes out the Sith colony.
• 3,914 BBY:
  • The Ithorians stumble across Bethlamore and begin to seed the jungle and tend to it. Under the Ithorians the struggling jungle florishes as they introduce or genetically engineer new species of flora and fauna.
• c. 3,800 BBY:
  • The first non-Ithorians since the Sith stumble across Bethlamore and begin to settle at the northern end of the valley in a community that would prove to be the precursor to the Ayrid Hai Spaceport.
• 3,478 BBY:
  • The Ithorians, after observing the planet of Bethlamore for over 400 years, embed a specially constructed herdship into the Ayrid Hai Valley. They use this herd ship to introduce some native flora and fauna from Ithor, as well as some genetically engineered flora and fauna they had created for Bethlamore.
• c. 2,000 BBY:
  • On Bethlamore a flourishing city, known by the Ithorians as Sytas, exists in what is now modern-day Ayrid Hai Spaceport.
  • Meanwhile, a dark sider gathers together a group of Humans and Zabraks and disappears into the jungle with them.
• c. 1,500 BBY:
  • Three Sith, hunted by Jedi, flee to Bethlamore with their slaves. Their transports crash into the surface, but they adapt and begin carving out an empire there. Essentially cut off of the rest of the galaxy by it's obscurity, these Sith lords fall into infighting. Each lord founds their own kingdom and declares war on his rivals.
• 1,483 BBY:
  • Sytas, the city at the foot of Mountain Ayrid, is conquered by the Sith of Bethlamore. The city is demolished and its people are killed or enslaved by the Sith.
• c. 1,480 BBY:
  • The Ithorians of Bethlamore are enslaved and their terraforming program becomes defunct. For the next 500 years, life on Bethlamore grows and evolves unchecked...
• c. 1,025 BBY:
  • The Sith warlord, Herite, conquers the entirely of the Ayrid Hai River Valley, and unites all of Bethlamore's Sith under one banner. He orders construction of the Black Temple of Herite (A.K.A. the Temple of the Shadow Vines), on the location of an even more ancient dark side shrine.
    
• 1,005 BBY:
  • The planet Bethlamore is captured from the forces of the local Sith lords by the Jedi Order's Army of Light. They raze the jungles and most of the Sith temples, making their residence in the Great Temple of Adhe Zion. The Jedi begin to set up an academy of the Force in the Great Temple of Adhe Zion.
• 1,004 BBY:
  • The cities of Ayrid Hai and Adiemus are founded by the freed slaves of the Sith. The large majority of the slaves go to Adiemus, but the ones that found Ayrid Hai on the site of Sytas go on to build Bethlamore's first spaceport.
• c. 1,000 BBY:
  • The Ithorians and the Jedi begin working together to cleanse Bethlamore's environment of the taint caused by the Sith. The terraforming process is not resumed, but the Ithorians and the Jedi attempt to 'weed' the garden that is Bethlamore.
  • A golden age begins on Bethlamore, with Ithorian scientists and Jedi healers making great discoveries about the medicinal properties of Bethlamore's flora and fauna.
• 952 BBY:
  • The Republic colony of Bethlamore replaces its Ithorian-dominated colonial government with a democratically elected (though still Ithorian-dominated) government, the Federation of Bethlamorian States. The first Governor-General is Ithorian scientist Tyri Endire, and the first Prime Minister is Roron Talorn, an Ithorian nature priest who later died in a fire.
• 813 BBY:
  • The city of Takoi'edo is founded on the shores of the Sea of Takoi by human settlers. It would grow to become one of the largest metropolitan areas on Bethlamore, though not the largest single city.
• 491 BBY:
  • The Jedi Order removes all of it's Jedi, save one, from the Bethlamore Temple. That one Jedi takes an apprentice and passes stewardship of temple to her when he dies. This tradition continues and the Temple of Adhe Zion remains a Jedi possession for another 200 years.
• 412 BBY:
  • The first non-Ithorian Prime Minister of Bethlamore is elected; Ghon Miclan, a Zabrak female, is the winning candidate.
• c. 290 BBY:
  • The Jedi Order withdraws the last Jedi from Bethlamore, leaving the temple abandoned.