For countless billions of wounded soldiers
fighting in the endless wars of the Star Wars universe, bacta was a get-out-of-death-free pass.
The near-miraculous healing agent prompted rapid tissue growth and could heal virtually anything
with enough time. But bacta wasn’t always the go-to healing agent in the galaxy. For thousands
of years, that title had belonged to kolto, a similar but markedly inferior healing
agent produced by the Selkath of Manaan. The Selkath leveraged their control of the
kolto supply to accrue power and wealth for their homeworld, building virtually their entire
economy around exporting the substance. Once bacta became popular, however, the status quo on Manaan
imploded, and the planet was never the same. Manaan was a world in the
Pyrshak System of the Inner Rim, located fairly close to the heart of the Core
Worlds. A vast ocean covered its entire surface, and its native sentient species, the Selkath,
were amphibious, capable of breathing underwater and on the surface. From the dawn of their
civilization, they were a peaceful people, living in pod-like underwater cities and
establishing firmly legalistic societies. Early in their history, however, they were
conquered by the Rakata of the Infinite Empire. The Rakata enslaved the Selkath and
exported them to sites across the galaxy, where many were worked to death building monuments
to the Infinite Empire. One such monument was built on Manaan itself, in the Hrakert Rift
- a Dark Side artifact known as a Star Map. The Hrakert Rift had unusual properties, possibly
due to, or at least enhanced by, the Star Map, and the Selkath gave it great religious
significance. The rift was home to a giant Firaxan Shark the Selkath called the Progenitor,
a creature of legend that protected Manaan’s greatest resource - a substance called kolto.
This powerful healing juice bubbled up from the depths of the Hrakert Rift, and after the Infinite
Empire collapsed and the Rakata abandoned Manaan, the Selkath learned how to harvest,
refine, and make use of the substance. The Republic discovered Manaan within the
first five millennia of Republic rule. At some point between 24,000 and 20,000 BBY, Manaan
integrated itself into galactic civilization. It built a settlement on the ocean surface,
Ahto City, from which they exported kolto to the Republic and other civilizations. As the
immense healing capabilities of kolto became widely known, demand for the product soared,
and Manaan became very wealthy. Despite its status as a power player in the galactic economy,
however, Manaan never fully joined the Republic, instead choosing to remain neutral so it
could sell its kolto to all who wanted it. Even as it became one of the most important
planets in the galaxy, Manaan remained a world of many secrets. The Selkath guarded their planet
zealously, forbidding outsiders from visiting their true cities beneath the ocean’s surface,
or from leaving Ahto City, for that matter. Wide swaths of Manaan were unexplored even by the
Selkath, but the Selkath forbade outsiders from exploring it themselves. The art of kolto
harvesting and production was kept secret, and the Selkath forbade outsiders from even
getting a glimpse of the production process. The Selkath kept outsiders in the dark about
their culture, society, and beliefs as well, choosing to appear to outsiders as stoic
legalists whose judgements were always driven by logic instead of passion. As
you might have gathered from all this, many Selkath were mildly xenophobic, seeing
other species as inferior or at least illogical. Though Manaan was formally neutral,
it was, for most of its history, a de facto part of the Galactic Republic. Most of
the wars fought during the Republic’s early years were either small-scale, in which the Selkath
largely backed the Republic, or civil wars, in which the Selkath traded with all involved.
But the Old Sith Wars shook up the usual order. Starting with the Great Sith War, the
Republic’s enemies began conquering large swaths of the galactic government’s territory,
establishing themselves as legitimate rivals. This became the most pronounced in the
Jedi Civil War, in which the new Sith Empire conquered a full third of the Republic,
more than any other Republic enemy before it. During the Jedi Civil War, both the Galactic
Republic and the Sith Empire sought to monopolize the kolto trade, pressuring the Selkath
into giving them more favorable deals. Instead, the Selkath strengthened their neutrality
laws. Manaan ended up trading with both the Republic and the Sith, making sure they gave
neither side an advantage in trade over the other, except as punishment for
breaches of the peace on Manaan. Both the Republic and the Sith were granted
embassies and protective military garrisons on Manaan, which, for as long as the war
lasted, was the only place in the galaxy where Republic soldiers and Sith Troopers
could be seen walking side by side. The Selkath forbade fights in the
streets of Ahto City and severely punished those who violated this law, especially
representatives of the Republic or the Sith. When fights broke out, as was inevitable in a city
where there was simultaneously Republic soldiers, Sith soldiers, and a respectable number of bars,
the Ahto High Court tended to respond with kolto sanctions against the government to whom the
instigators belonged. This was meant to serve as a deterrent against breaches of the peace,
but it actually had the opposite effect. The Loyalists and the Sith quickly figured out that
the Selkath considered instigators to be the ones who threw the first punch, so they regularly
attempted to goad each other into starting fights. Ahto City was a powderkeg ruled by the five
most legalist judges in the entire galaxy, a fun place for anyone who enjoyed
the worst parts of politics. As you might expect, both the Republic and the
Sith hated the Selkath and their neutrality, and during the Jedi Civil War, both factions
worked to undermine it. The Republic secretly allied with the few reasonable Selkath in Manaan’s
government and built a kolto harvesting facility in the Hrakert Rift, against Selkath law.
Meanwhile, the Sith kidnapped a number of Force-sensitive Selkath youths, indoctrinated them
into Sith ideology, and attempted to brainwash them into overthrowing their government and
replacing it with a Sith-aligned puppet. During his visit to Manaan, the redeemed Revan
exposed both plots. The Hrakert Station plot was quietly swept under the rug by judges uninvolved
in the conspiracy, but the Sith plot ultimately led to Manaan formally banning the Sith Empire
from the planet in the last days of the war. It was after the Jedi Civil War that major
problems began for Manaan. For reasons unknown, the kolto supply dwindled, forcing the Selkath
to raise their prices. This happened at the worst possible time for Manaan. Around the
same time, the insectoid Vratix of Thyferra were beginning to market their own healing
agent - a superior product they called bacta. Produced by two local corporations, the
Xucphra Corporation and the Zaltin Corporation, bacta could only be made on Thyferra, giving the
Vratix complete control over the bacta trade. Unlike the Selkath, however, the Vratix were
much more open to the outside galaxy. They were perfectly happy to share the secrets of bacta,
and they were also willing to join the Republic. For the Republic, it was a win-win
situation - they got a better healing agent and they could stop dealing
with the Selkath. Bacta quickly supplanted kolto on the galactic market,
and, predictably, this caused Manaan’s economy to implode. Manaan attempted to join the Republic in
a bid to salvage the situation and regain some of its lost prestige, but for some mysterious
reason the Republic snubbed them, rejecting their application. The Selkath’s neutrality
policy came back to bite them in the ass. A few centuries later, when Darth Vitiate’s
Sith Empire attacked the Republic during the Great Galactic War, the Selkath again offered
to sell kolto to both sides, hoping the intense fighting would drive up demand for their weaker
but still-useful healing juice. The Sith responded to this offer by bombing Manaan and destroying
Ahto City and all other surface installations. After the end of the Great Galactic
War, however, the Republic and the Empire settled into an uneasy Cold War, during
which the Selkath began to rebuild Ahto City. This time, they were successful in
reestablishing the old trade situation. Despite this, Manaan continued to decline
as kolto became increasingly obsolete. By the end of the Old Sith Wars, the Selkath
had lost every last shred of relevance. During the New Sith Wars, in which galactic
civilization itself crumbled, the Selkath were cut off from the outside galaxy completely, leading
them to abandon their surface cities and slowly revert to a more primitive state. Their society
disintegrated into warring underwater city-states. They had recovered somewhat by the time
of the Clone Wars, and had even begun to export kolto again, but Manaan was never
really the same, nor were the Selkath. Bet you didn't expect that bacta, of all
things, could so utterly destroy a civilization. But hey - that’s geopolitics for you.
So what do you think? Would you like a video about Thyferra next? Feel free to
post your thoughts in the comments below.
