Join The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders as they explore Star Wars lore via their own personal Holocron. This episode will focus on the Sharu.
Transcript
Cold Open
Over one hundred thousand years before the Galactic Empire, a species so advanced they could bend dimensions chose to drain their own intelligence, bury their cities under plastic pyramids, and live as sub-sentient slaves—all to hide from a cosmic threat known as the Celestials.
Intro
Welcome back to The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy-Looking Nerf Herders. Today we’re cracking open one of the most unique, surreal, and underappreciated chapters in Star Wars Expanded Universe history: the tale of the Sharu.
Discussion
The Pre-Republic Empire and the Celestial Threat
Long before the birth of the Galactic Republic, the Jedi Order, or the discovery of hyperdrive technology by modern spacefarers, the Sharu stood as one of the most technologically advanced civilizations the galaxy had ever seen. Residing in the Rafa System, their empire flourished over one hundred thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. At their peak, the Sharu were not merely starfarers; they were masters of spatial geometry, temporal manipulation, and dimensional physics. Their domain expanded outward into the galaxy, leaving cultural and physical footprints as far Coreward as the planet Aargau. They lived in monumental metropolitan centers built with non-Euclidean architecture, where physical space and the flow of time were malleable concepts under their complete control.
However, their reign of quiet dominance met an existential crisis around 100,000 BBY with the arrival of the Celestials. These god-like precursor beings—responsible for constructing massive cosmic structures like Centerpoint Station and the Kathol Rift—represented a level of cosmic authority that even the hyper-advanced Sharu could not match. Recognizing that a conventional galactic war against the Celestials would result in absolute annihilation, the leaders of the Sharu devised an extraordinary, high-stakes survival plan. Rather than fight an unwinnable conflict, they chose to hide in plain sight by completely erasing their own presence from galactic history.
Pyramids, Physics, and the Mindharp
To execute this plan, the Sharu encased their towering cities beneath colossal, virtually indestructible pyramids made of a dense, plastic-like compound. Inside these structures, time slowed down dramatically, and local dimensions were folded to conceal their true scale. Next, the Sharu harvested their species’ collective intelligence, memory, and cultural history, transferring this immense power into vast crystalline networks known as life-orchards. To ensure they could one day reclaim their civilization, they created the Mindharp of Sharu: a strange, multidimensional artifact that constantly shifted form between spatial planes and emitted subharmonic frequencies capable of reversing the memory-wiping process when triggered by another sentient species.
With their cities sealed and their minds drained, the Sharu underwent a terrifying physical and mental regression. They transformed into the Toka, or the “Broken People.” Stripped of their higher brain functions, white-haired, frail, and docile, the Toka lived out millennia on the surface of the Rafa worlds as primitive nomads, completely oblivious to the fact that their own glorious cities lay dormant directly beneath their feet. For one hundred thousand years, the secret held, and the galaxy entirely forgot that the Sharu had ever existed.
Human Enslavement and Lando’s Discovery
Millennia later, Human colonists arrived in the Rafa system, completely unaware of the region’s true history. Viewing the gentle Toka as simple-minded indigenous primitives, the colonists exploited them as forced labor, forcing the Toka to farm native crops and harvest the very crystalline life-orchards that stored their lost heritage. This cycle of tragedy continued until 4 BBY, when a young gambler named Lando Calrissian arrived in the system alongside his unique, starfish-shaped droid companion, Vuffi Raa. Blackmailed by the Sorcerer of Tund, Rokur Gepta, and the corrupt Colonial Governor Duttes Mer, Lando was coerced into venturing deep into the main pyramid on Rafa IV to retrieve the legendary Mindharp.
When Governor Mer foolishly activated the Mindharp, he unleashed its subharmonic emanations across the entire system. The results were instantaneous and catastrophic for the Human occupiers. The plastic pyramids collapsed and dissolved, and ancient, towering hyper-technological megacities erupted through the crust of the planets. Simultaneously, the subharmonic wave struck the enslaved Toka population, instantly restoring their stolen intellect and returning them to their former glory as the Sharu.
Imperial Response and Galactic Aftermath
The immediate energy discharge generated a massive interdiction field, blocking all hyperspace travel in and out of the Rafa system for weeks and destroying the human colonial infrastructure. The sudden emergence of a god-tier precursor race sent shockwaves through the galaxy. Emperor Palpatine himself viewed the newly awakened Sharu as a profound threat to his Imperial reign, promptly establishing a permanent Imperial military garrison in the Rafa system. However, Imperial commanders were so thoroughly intimidated by the Sharu’s incomprehensible technology that they never dared to launch an offensive.
Following the fall of the Empire, the New Republic dispatched a five-hundred-member research team from the Obroan Institute for Archaeology to study the species. Yet, true to their ancient nature, the proud and aloof Sharu refused to share their secrets, treating galactic scientists as lesser sentients and keeping their enigmatic civilization isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
Outro
And that’s all the time we have today to explore the Sharu. Thank you for watching. We’d like to invite you to click the like button, and don’t forget to subscribe to this youtube channel and click the bell icon to get notified when we upload another Star Wars Holocron lore episode.
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Until The Infernal Brotherhood convenes again, my fellow scruffy-looking Nerf Herders,
May the Force be with you.