The Hutts were one of the Star Wars
galaxy’s most powerful civilizations, the lords of the galactic underworld, and the
conquerors of thousands of systems. They were the only civilization on a similar scale to
the Republic for most of galactic history, and they lasted far longer than any of the
Republic’s other rivals, with the Hutts’ empire persisting in some form or another for tens
of thousands of years. But how did the Hutts get so powerful? What allowed their empire to last
for so lon
g? In this video, we’ll be doing a comprehensive deep dive into the history of
the Hutts, their empire, and its territory. As with so many other species, the story of the
Hutts begins on a largely unremarkable planet, a forest world called Varl. Varl was a lush and
humid planet, and it eventually gave rise to two sentient species - the Hutts and their distant
cousins, the t’landa Til. The Rybets claimed to have also been from Varl, but the veracity of
this claim is uncertain, and the Hutts
denied it. Nonetheless, Varl teemed with life and had
a remarkable diversity of sentient species. Both the Hutts and the t’landa Til were
unusual when compared to the galaxy’s other sentient species, the Hutts especially.
They were essentially giant slugs with arms, as we’re sure you all know; thus, they lacked
skeletons, instead having hardened mantles under their skin that maintained the shape
of their heads, on top of which were lumped thick layers of blubber and muscle. Their skin
was
very thick and constantly coated in mucus, and they were also resistant to most poisons and
diseases. All of this made Hutts extremely tough, and even when they did suffer severe
injuries, they displayed incredible regenerative abilities - Hutts could not only
regrow lost limbs, but even missing parts of their brains. They could also resist Jedi mind
tricks, survive for extended periods underwater, see into the ultraviolet spectrum, and unhinge
their jaws to swallow large prey in one gulp.
Hutts had a very long life cycle, able to live
for up to a thousand years, and for as long as they lived, they never stopped growing, allowing
some to reach truly enormous sizes. Hutts were also hermaphrodites and most of the time, they
reproduced asexually, essentially mating with themselves, but some Hutts were known to mate with
each other, though this was unnecessary. Newborn Huttlets crawled into their parent’s brood pouch
and typically remained there for decades. They took an incredib
ly long time to grow up, and Hutts weren’t considered adults
until they reached two hundred years old. Anthropologists believed that the Hutts evolved
as solitary hunters. A Hutt hunting might seem laughable, but despite their appearances, Hutts
could be quite formidable. They were capable of incredible strength, and back when they had to
hunt to survive, they would have been terrifying, fearsome ambush predators able to devour prey in
one gulp and quite literally crush beings nearly as mas
sive as themselves. They were the apex
predators of Varl, and their solitary nature, as opposed to the tribal nature of humans, led
them to develop a sort of ingrained selfishness, a drive for competition and lack of empathy
that went on to define Hutt society. How and why such beings went on to form a complex society
at all was a bit of a mystery to anthropologists, but it was believed that, at some point, the
Hutts of Varl experienced a crisis that forced them to band together for an exte
nded period.
This evolved into the first Hutt civilization, and it also gave rise to the
oldest elements of Hutt culture. Hutt civilization was based on clans,
which frequently competed with each other, as the goal of all Hutt clans was constant
accumulation at the expense of all others, an attitude likely ingrained by whatever early
crisis forced the Hutts to band together. Their culture differed greatly from human ones in
many respects, with one of the biggest being that the Hutts comple
tely lacked the concept
of morality, and things like murder, theft, and slavery were all seen as perfectly ordinary
aspects of life by the Hutts. A more interesting difference was how Hutts conceptualized
gender. All Hutts were hermaphrodites, meaning they all possessed both male and female
reproductive organs, and the idea of gender was initially an alien concept to them. They adopted
it after extended contact with the outside galaxy, but had a very fluid relationship with
it; the gender
of Hutts was essentially an arbitrary personality trait, one that changed
over time. When Hutts that considered themselves male became pregnant, for example, they would
often switch to seeing themselves as female, as exemplified by the following
passage from the novel The Hutt Gambit: “Han looked over at Jiliac, and suddenly
realized that the Hutt did appear different. Warty excrescences had erupted on the being’s
face, and purplish patches mingled with the greenish ones on the leathery tan
skin. Jiliac
also appeared bigger, and rather lethargic. ‘Uh, Lord Jiliac, are you feeling-’ Han began, only to have Jabba round on
him with withering scorn. ‘Human idiot! Can’t you see that
Lord Jiliac is now Lady Jiliac? She is expecting! In her delicate condition,
she really should not make this effort, but we Desilijic are nothing
if not faithful to our duty!’” The early Hutts also developed a unified religion,
which will be important much later on. During the early history of the Hut
ts, Varl was part of a
binary star system, and the Hutts named their suns Ardos and Evona. They saw these suns as twin
gods whom they worshiped, and they believed that especially noteworthy members of their species
could become lesser gods after death. The Hutts had a rich mythology, and they developed many
superstitions and legends about the stars and constellations visible from their homeworld. A
pulsar located close to Varl, the Godsheart, was used for divination of the future by ancient
Hutt
mystics, and the brightest star in Varl’s night sky, Cyax, was the subject of many legends. After
becoming a spacefaring empire, the Hutts forbade all travel to these stars so as to preserve their
mystery and keep the legends about them alive. Now, we mentioned earlier that the crisis that
forced the Hutts to develop a complex society is unknown. Some in-universe theories credit
it to some sort of resource scarcity on Varl that caused a protracted famine. But it’s
also possible that
the incentive to band together came not from the ecosystem of Varl,
but from the stars. The Hutts didn’t know it, since very, very few of them were even mildly
Force-sensitive, but due to its abundance of life, Varl was strong in the Force. And like
many worlds with strong Force-signatures, it eventually attracted the
attention of the Rakata. At some point around 30,000 BBY, the Infinite
Empire came to Varl and conquered it. They had advanced, Force-powered technology, and the
Hutts, who w
ere still a preagricultural society at this point, were crushed. The Rakata likely
enslaved the Hutts, though the extent of their servitude is unknown, since we can’t imagine
they would have been particularly useful for the Rakata’s purposes. It’s also unknown
how long the occupation of Varl lasted, though we know that it was long enough for the
Hutts to begin to adapt the invaders’ technology. In the centuries leading up to 25,500 BBY, the
Infinite Empire began to implode, and the Hutts, r
ealizing this, began a rebellion against
their rule. Led by a warlord called Ardustagg the Absolute, the Hutts co-opted Rakatan
technology and drove the invaders from Varl, one of a string of successful slave rebellions
happening across the Infinite Empire. The Rakata would never return to Varl - but their legacy
would last for millennia. The Hutts rapidly reverse-engineered many pieces of Rakatan
technology, developing industry, droids, energy weapons, spacecraft, and eventually even
prim
itive hyperdrives. But technology wasn’t all the Hutts had gotten from the Rakata.
The invaders had taught them conquest, empire-building, and slavery, and now that
they were free, the Hutts were determined to imitate their former oppressors and
build their own interstellar empire. The Hutts of this time were warriors, and after
leaving Varl, they set out to explore the stars, seeking other worlds to conquer. Over the
centuries, the Hutts conquered hundreds of worlds and crushed countless p
eoples.
Those who resisted the Hutts were wiped out; those too weak to resist were often also
wiped out. The Hutts only allowed a few of the species they encountered to survive,
deeming them useful as servants. Most of these species were enslaved, while a select
few were treated as sovereign vassals; the only known example of the latter this
early in Hutt history was the Sakiyans, who were able to remain independent in exchange
for economic and technological cooperation with the Hutts. To
keep their independence, they
helped the Hutts develop superweapons called planechanga, enormous railguns that hurled
asteroids at planets to crack them open. Indeed, the Sakiyans were not only the first
non-Hutt species to remain independent from Hutt control, but the first ones to survive their
contact with the Hutts at all. Sakiyan chronicles are some of the oldest sources to describe
the Hutts, containing mention of armored Hutt cavaliers coming to Saki to exact tribute. Most
of the ot
her species the Hutts encountered at this time saw their worlds completely destroyed,
subjected to poisoning, planetwide firestorms, bombardment, or planechanga strikes. One of the
earliest regions to be conquered by the Hutts, a swath of space known as the Cairns, was full of
dead worlds whose histories and peoples had long ago been forgotten. Among these corpse-worlds was
M’Hanna, a desolate planet covered pole to pole by endless dunes of black dust, and Usk, a lifeless
world whose people
had long ago been exterminated. But not all of the Hutts’ conquests were so
utterly destroyed. The Hutts extracted resources from many of the systems they found, using it to
fuel their civilization’s growing industrial base. Other planets were claimed as throneworlds
by Hutt clans, and their natural beauty was preserved for the enjoyment of Hutt warlords.
One of the Hutts’ most northerly possessions, the volcanic planet Sleheyron, became
their most wealthy treasure worlds, as well as the w
ar-forge of the Hutt Empire and
its second-greatest stronghold, after Varl itself. By around 25,200 BBY, the Hutts had conquered
hundreds of systems, and with the implosion of the Infinite Empire, they became one of the
greatest powers in the galaxy. At some point, the Hutts formally established themselves as the
Hutt Empire, which, for the next two centuries, was the most powerful state in the galaxy.
It ruled over a large swath of what would later be classified as the Outer and Mid Rims,
and at first, the Hutts saw themselves as the unchallenged inheritors of the galaxy.
Their empire wasn’t the most stable; the Hutt clans fought each other as much as they
fought outsiders. But the Hutt Empire remained more or less united, in large part because
it soon encountered its first real rival. The Hutts were not the only former slaves of
the Infinite Empire to reverse-engineer Rakatan technology and take to the stars. In the Core
Worlds, dozens of human civilizations were busy doin
g the same, but at this point in time, they
were half a galaxy removed from the Hutts. Not all of the human civilizations around at this
time were located in the Core, however. During their time under the Infinite Empire, humanity had
been given enough free reign to get a head-start on colonizing the galaxy. Starting in 27,500
BBY, the humans of Coruscant began sending out sleeper ships in all directions, establishing
new human civilizations on remote worlds. Most of these sleeper ships lan
ded in the Core Worlds and
eventually re-established contact with Coruscant; these early colonies would eventually found
the Galactic Republic. But a few human sleeper ships ended up very far from home, including
a few that landed in the remote Tion Cluster. Located in what would later be named
the Outer Rim, the Tion Cluster was soon transformed into the home of its own unique
interstellar human civilization. The first human settlements in the cluster, Barseg and
Janilis, weren’t part of
the Infinite Empire, and for the most part, the Tionese lived free of
Rakatan dominion. Nonetheless, they eventually came upon Rakatan technology that they quickly
reverse-engineered, developing energy weapons called beam-tubes and primitive hyperdrives.
This technology allowed humans to spread all throughout the Tion Cluster, becoming another
of the galaxy’s most powerful civilizations. Initially, the Tion Cluster was rather
unstable, as the Tionese quickly broke up into a scattering of wa
rring states.
Many of these were pirate kingdoms, built on the plundering of other Tionese
states. As the Infinite Empire collapsed, some of these states expanded and grew
increasingly powerful; by 25,150 BBY, the foremost of these were the Kingdom of Cron,
the Livien League, and the Kingdom of Barseg. But around this time, the Kingdom of Cron came
under the rule of the pirate-king Xer VIII, who was determined to conquer all of Tionese space.
He began the Cronese sweeps, in which he conque
red all of the Tion Cluster except the Livien League.
Xer’s son and heir, Xim, achieved even more. After taking over his father’s empire, Xim,
known by future generations as Xim the Despot, conquered the Livien League. But this was
only the start of a decades-long campaign of conquest that saw Xim’s Empire briefly become
the largest in the galaxy. He conquered the Thanium Worlds to the west, the Far Indrexu to
the north, and the Kiirium Reaches to the east, claiming eight planets as his thr
oneworlds and
amassing an enormous fortune. In 25,102 BBY, Xim began to push south as well, and before
long, he made contact with the Hutts. Xim’s contact with the Hutts was neither
an accident nor sudden; on the contrary, he had actually been preparing for it for years.
While he was still conquering the Kiirium Reaches, he had begun hearing rumors about a similarly
large and incredibly wealthy empire to the south, and he was immediately intrigued. Naturally,
he wanted the Hutts’ wealth fo
r himself, but he knew from what he had heard of Hutt Space
that the Hutt Empire was likely stronger and better equipped for war than his was, so he didn’t
attempt to attack the Hutts outright. Rather, he had his hyperspace scouts carefully and
secretly chart routes to the borders of the Hutt Empire to be used as future invasion
corridors, and he spent years amassing an invasion force. Xim used the most advanced
technology the Tionese had, building a fleet of ships plated in chrome-like kii
rium and an
army of state-of-the-art war droids, the first known droid army in galactic history. All the
while, the Hutts had no idea what was coming. At the time, the Hutts were expanding
north, pushing into the Si’Klaata Cluster and establishing a major colony
on the temperate planet Ko Vari. This was very close to the edge of Xim’s empire,
and as a result, the Despot was able to gain an extensive amount of information
about the Hutts’ most northerly holdings, as well as a basic sketch o
f their territory
down to Sleheyron. Finally, in 25,102 BBY, Xim made his move. He sent diplomats to Ko Vari to
make contact with the Hutts and establish formal relations, the first step in a grand scheme to
take over the Hutt Empire in one way or another. But the Hutts didn’t take kindly to the presence
of the Tionese diplomats. They saw these humans as lesser beings and were furious that they
dared try to negotiate with the Hutts as if they were equals. Nonetheless, they couldn’t
deny th
e impressive size of Xim’s Empire, so they made the Tionese an unusually generous
offer - if the Tionese submitted to Hutt rule, they would become the Hutts’ most favored slaves.
Xim, as you might expect, didn’t take kindly to this. Claiming the ancient Rakatan title
of Daritha, meaning conqueror of worlds, he declared Sleheyron his ninth throneworld
and set out to take Hutt Space by force. The conflict that followed is remembered as
the Xim Wars, and it began with a two-pronged attack. One
Tionese fleet attacked Ko Vari,
while another snuck down Xim’s secret routes to attack Sleheyron directly. At Ko Vari, the
Hutt Empire suffered its first major defeat; the Tionese plundered the colony and subjected
the planet to a devastating orbital bombardment, transforming the formerly lush colony
into a wasteland. But the battle wasn’t a total loss - the Hutt general Boonta,
who was in charge of Ko Vari’s defense, was able to inflict heavy losses on the Tionese by
sending out armies o
f slaves in suicide charges, a novel tactic that led to Boonta being
recognized as one of the Hutts’ leading strategists. It bought the Hutts enough
time to successfully defend Sleheyron, routing Xim’s fleet and driving what remained
of it into the black holes of the Maw Cluster. Around this time, the Hutt clan leaders held the
Conclave of Worms, at which they appointed another Hutt commander, Kossak the Hutt, the Clan-General
of the Hutt Empire, the supreme commander of all Hutt forces. Ko
ssak, in turn, gave Boonta the
Hutt command of a fleet of privateers with which to harass Tionese shipping. This weakened Xim’s
forces enough to prevent any further incursions into Hutt territory, at least for a time. As the
war ground to a stalemate, Kossak sent a message to Xim, calling him a coward and challenging his
fleets to a ritual battle above the planet Vontor in the contested Si’Klaata Cluster. Xim agreed to
the challenge, and a new chapter of the war began. In 25,100 BBY, Hutt f
orces under Kossak and Boonta
engaged Xim’s fleet in the First Battle of Vontor, and thanks to Boonta’s tactics, the Hutts were
victorious. Xim’s whole fleet was destroyed, and the Hutts demanded that he withdraw from Ko
Vari and the other Hutt territories the Tionese had occupied. But Xim refused; instead,
he rebuilt his fleet and began raiding the other worlds of the Si’Klaata
Cluster, hitting Klatooine, Vodran, and Kintan. Xim even began a second offensive
into the Hutt Empire’s core te
rritories, assisting the Hutt vassal Moralan in throwing
off their masters. The Parliament of Moralan declared the planet a republic, and now
the Hutts had another enemy to worry about. The next year, Kossak challenged Xim to a
second ritual battle on Vontor, and again Xim accepted. This time, he chose to fight on
the ground, bringing in elite Duinarbulon Star Lancers. But Kossak responded by making use of the
specialties of some of the Hutts’ vassal species, deploying Jilruan flechetters
and Cyborrean
heavy infantry, and once again the Hutts came out on top. The Second Battle of Vontor wasn’t
nearly as devastating for the Tionese, however, and Xim managed to pillage a hoard of kiirium
from the planet before his armies’ defeat. Nonetheless, Xim’s commanders began to doubt their
prospects in the war, and the Tionese command structure started to fracture. The fleets of Hutt
privateers that Boonta had been dispatching were, by this point, running roughshod over the Kiirium
Rea
ches, and Tionese shipping was in disarray. The cost of rebuilding from the losses at the battles
of Vontor nearly bankrupted the whole empire. Xim still refused to give in, however, though he did
concede Moralan to the Hutts to buy himself time. Boonta the Hutt then repaid Moralan’s rebellion
by sterilizing the entire planet, wiping out the Moralans and turning their homeworld into a
wasteland. Boonta followed up this atrocity by launching a surprise attack on Ko Vari, which
he successfull
y reclaimed from Tionese forces. In 25,096 BBY, Kossak the Hutt challenged Xim
to a third ritual battle at Vontor. If Xim won, Kossak promised to cede Ko Vari and Moralan to the
Tionese, but if Kossak won, the Hutts demanded the Tionese cede the entirety of the Kiirium Reaches.
Xim agreed, as he had a new trump card ready to be deployed - his army of war robots. But Kossak
had a trump card of his own. Unbeknownst to the Tionese, Hutt envoys had reached out to
the Nikto, the Vodrans, and the
Klatooinians, three species from the Si’Klaata Cluster whose
homeworlds Xim’s forces had pillaged. The Hutts had promised to protect these three species
from the invaders in exchange for their service, and the Nikto, Klatooinians, and Vodrans
all agreed. Thus, with the Treaty of Vontor, the entirety of all three species agreed to
slavery under the Hutts for all time, and Kossak and Boonta immediately rallied vast armies
of them to lead into battle against Xim’s forces. Together with Weequa
y privateers, hordes of Nikto,
Klatooinian, and Vodran warriors overwhelmed Xim’s forces at the Third Battle of Vontor, and not
even Xim’s vaunted war droids could stop them. The Tionese were massacred, and Xim the Despot
was captured and hauled back to Varl for a public trial, in which Kossak the Hutt condemned him to
languish in a Hutt dungeon for the rest of his life. Xim died in captivity shortly thereafter,
and his empire fractured. The war had bankrupted the Tionese, and they shattere
d into warring
states once more, squandering what remained of their wealth and power in fruitless civil
wars. Much of the territory Xim had conquered was abandoned, and the Kiirium Reaches became a
border region between the Hutts and the Tionese. Kossak and Boonta, meanwhile, became
heroes of the Hutt Empire. Ko Vari was renamed Boonta in honor of the general who
had retaken it, and the Hutts instituted the holiday of Boonta’s Eve, the anniversary of
the night before the Third Battle of Vo
ntor, on which Hutt slaves were to renew their vows
of obedience and be given gifts and a feast by their masters. The Hutt Empire became more
powerful and prosperous than ever before thanks to its victory over Xim and the raids on the
Tion Cluster that followed. The Hutts reveled in their victories for centuries - until a
new human threat appeared on the horizon. Just a few decades after the end of the
Xim Wars, the Galactic Republic formed far off in the Core thanks to the invention
of th
e modern hyperdrive. The Republic began to expand rapidly after the discovery
of two great hyperspace routes leading off into the Rim - the Corellian Run and
the Perlemian Trade Route. By 24,500 BBY, the latter route extended all the way out to
the Tion Cluster, and contact was made between Republic traders and the Tionese. This made
the Hutts uneasy. Their agents informed them that the Republic was powerful and wealthy,
possibly even more so than the Hutt Empire, and they feared that the t
wo human
civilizations would unite against them. Thus, the Hutts decided to take the Tionese
down another peg by initiating the Devouring, a genocidal campaign against the Kiirium Reaches.
Hutt forces swept through the region and cleansed every single colony world they found of life,
reducing them all to radioactive slag heaps. The Kiirium Reaches became known as the Ash Worlds,
and the destruction visited upon the region was so complete that it took tens of thousands of
years for Republic
archeologists to realize that the desolate Ash Worlds and the legendarily
wealthy Kiirium Reaches were one and the same. The Tionese suffered greatly from this campaign,
which cut off their last remaining trickle of wealth and new resources, making them desperate
for new worlds to conquer. In 24,000 BBY, one of the Tionese states, the Honorable
Union of Desevro and Tion, decided that the best option was to pillage the Republic. Thus
began the century-long Tionese War between the Republic a
nd the Honorable Union, which we talked
about in depth in our Republic history series. As the war ground into a stalemate, Republic
agents made contact with the Hutts and managed to convince them that the Tionese were planning
to attack the Hutt Empire after they beat the Republic to reclaim the territories lost in
the Xim Wars. This enraged the Hutts to the point that they renewed their raids on the Tion
Cluster, devastating many Tionese worlds and greatly weakening their war machine. Thes
e raids
led to many Tionese systems agreeing to join the Republic for protection, and in 23,900 BBY, the
Republic won the war and annexed the Tion Cluster. In a way, the Republic had tricked the Hutts
into making their worst fears come to pass. The humans had united after all, and as the
Republic continued to expand into the Rim, the Hutts feared that another war was inevitable.
They began a long period of military buildup, during which the Hutt Empire maintained
little contact with the ou
tside galaxy, securing its borders against the
Republic spies the Hutts feared were trying to infiltrate their strongholds.
This continued for thousands of years. Between 23,900 and 15,000 BBY, the Galactic
Republic and the Hutt Empire were the two primary powers in the galaxy. There were
a few smaller empires around at this time, such as the Herglic Trade Empire, but these
were steadily absorbed into the Republic as it expanded into the Rim. You could describe
this period as a ten-thousan
d-year cold war between the Republic and the Hutts;
that’s certainly how the Hutts saw it, at least. But the Republic didn’t really see
things the same way. It had no intention of starting a war with the Hutts, and for most
of this period, it was more interested in fighting itself in the Alsakan Conflicts than
it was in brinkmanship with the Hutt Empire. But for thousands of years, the Hutts
refused to get their heads out of their ass to see this - though in fairness, Hutts
are all backsid
e, so how could they? Instead, as thousands of years passed without any sign of
a Republic assault, they started to get impatient. They also got increasingly paranoid, especially
as Republic colonists pushed into the Expansion Region and then the Mid Rim, coming ever closer
to the Hutts’ Coreward borders. In response, the Hutts began a millennia-long campaign of
slave raids against the Republic’s Rim colonies, ravaging numerous frontier worlds and making their
cold war with the Republic jus
t a bit warmer. Between 20,000 and 15,000 BBY, these raids wiped
out countless settlements in the Mid Rim. As most of these were new colonies that weren’t yet
Republic members, the Republic refused to act, but it supported independent groups that sought
to defend the frontier front Hutt slavers, most notably the Belasco Free Volunteers and the
Jedi Order. These groups patrolled the Mid Rim, fending off Hutt slavers where they could, and
sometimes, they even launched counteroffensives agains
t Hutt periphery worlds. Nonetheless,
this was only a band-aid, and for centuries, it seemed that the raids would continue
until they finally escalated into war. And then the Hutt Empire imploded. It’s unknown how or why, but in 15,000 BBY,
the Hutt Empire fell apart, descending into a brutal civil war known to history as the Hutt
Cataclysms. Ten thousand years of cold war, mounting paranoia, and growing militarism
boiled over all at once. But the Republic was still unwilling to attack the
Hutts at
this time, and by this point, the Hutts were in no position to attack the Republic, which
had grown far larger, wealthier, and more powerful than the stagnant Hutt Empire. Thus,
the only targets the Hutts had were each other. Hutt clans had fought wars with each
other before, but what made the Hutt Cataclysms different was that all the
clans began fighting each other at once, and it spelled the end of the Hutt Empire.
The empire began hemorrhaging territory, as its vassals took ad
vantage of the chaos
to throw off their masters and attain some measure of independence. Hutt Space shrank from a
large swath of the Outer and Mid Rims to a small pocket of systems between Varl and Sleheyron. All
the while, the Hutt clans tore into each other, unleashing their weapons of mass destruction
against their rivals, poisoning biospheres and deploying planechangas to cause devastation on
an enormous scale. There are no exact records of any of these atrocities, save only the
last o
ne - the devastation of Varl itself. It’s unknown exactly what happened. The Hutts
mythologized the destruction of Varl as the work of their gods, but most historians
believed that whatever happened to the system was inflicted by the Hutts themselves.
Either way, one of the system’s stars, Evona, disappeared, and its binary, Ardos, was
reduced to a white dwarf. Every planet in the system was completely destroyed, becoming the
Yev’anaha asteroid field, except for Varl itself, which was clean
sed of life and transformed into a
scorched, barren rock. According to Hutt legend, the cataclysm had begun when Evona was consumed
by a passing black hole - or perhaps a black hole of the Hutts’ creation. The gravitational
chaos this caused led to a cascade of planetary collisions that ripped the system apart, while
Ardos went supernova, scouring what remained. The destruction of Varl brought an end to
the civil war, and it was a rare moment of reckoning for the Hutts. They realized that t
hey
needed to change if they were to avoid destroying each other, and they needed a new way of thinking
if they were to rebuild what they had lost. The old ways of inter-clan warfare, conquest and
competition through military might had only brought the Hutts ruin; they recognized that their
warrior culture was a shortcoming, not a strength. Thus, the Hutts abandoned their warrior codes.
But unfortunately for the galaxy, their new way of life was about as bad. Because while the death
of Var
l forced the Hutts to abandon their warrior ways, it couldn’t force them to abandon their
all-consuming greed and sense of superiority. On the contrary - while most beings would
be despondent if they and their brethren had destroyed their own homeworld, the Hutts were
all too keen to use it for self-glorification. Remember how we said earlier that the Hutts
had worshiped Ardos and Evona as their gods? By surviving the destruction of Varl while their
gods had been destroyed, the Hutts believ
ed that they had proven themselves mightier than the gods
- that they had become gods in their own right by virtue of their survival. And from then on, they
acted as if they believed that wholeheartedly. Following the destruction of Varl, Hutt
society reformed under a new philosophy put forward by Budhila the Hutt,
a relation of the legendary Boonta the Hutt and fellow member of the Hestilic
Clan. This was the philosophy of kajidic, which laid out a roadmap for Hutt civilization
that favor
ed cunning and business skills over conquest and martial strength. Budhila upheld
the Hutts’ long-held belief in competition, accumulation, and dominance, but he argued
that instead of competing through outright war, the Hutt clans should instead compete
through economic and political means. In this, Budhila took inspiration from
the Republic, as well as from the Hutts’ acquisition of Evocar, which we’ll discuss in a
bit. The Hutt Empire’s great error, he believed, had been seeing everythin
g through the lens of war
and strength, despite the fact that their rivals, the Republic, had little interest in such
things, and instead achieved dominion over most of the galaxy through trade and economic
leverage. True power, Budhila contended, came not from overt conquest, but economic
domination, which allowed powers to amass considerable wealth and influence without fighting
a single battle. To him, strength was overrated, the domain of primitives and lesser
species; it was cunning t
hat mattered most. Budhila also believed that cunning was something
the Hutts had an inherent advantage in. They were amoral, lacking the restraint that the Republic
had, and they were still a sovereign state, giving them a central base from which to direct
criminal operations with impunity. Budhila, like most Hutts, also believed that the Hutts
were inherently smarter than everyone else, and thus they could eventually rule the galaxy
if they used that strength to the fullest. Thus, the Hut
t clans transformed from warring
fiefdoms to vast business enterprises, albeit ones that still maintained feudal rule over
their territories in Hutt Space. Thenceforth, they would go from competing with
each other via civil war to competing economically. This competition was regulated by a
newly-instituted five-member Hutt Ruling Council, which would step in if interclan rivalries got
too fierce. Under this new council, the Hutt Empire was transformed into the Hutt Cartel,
the largest crim
inal enterprise in the galaxy. This transformation also changed the nature of
the Hutts’ conflict with the Republic. Though individual Hutt clans would continue to send
slavers against frontier colonies for thousands of years to come, the Hutts abandoned the
idea of a war with the Republic. Instead, they sought to infiltrate and take
control of the Republic economy, beginning by taking control of the galactic
black market and using that power to worm their way into legitimate enterprises un
til
the entire Republic was essentially under their control. The Hutts no longer cared
whether they ruled directly or indirectly; per the philosophy of kajidic, so long as
they had economic power, they would win. This transformation came in tandem with the
Hutts’ relocation to a new homeworld. After years of searching for a suitable candidate,
the Hutt clans eventually decided on Evocar, a beautiful forest planet in the Y’Toub System
inhabited by the Evocii, a peaceful species of hunter-ga
therers. Under the leadership of Budhila
the Hutt, the Hutt clans began buying up swaths of Evocar, trading pieces of their advanced
technology to the Evocii clans in exchange for land rights. This continued until the Hutts
had bought up the entire planet, following which they exiled the Evocii to Evocar’s largest moon
and began terraforming it to suit their tastes. Evocar’s temperate rainforests were bulldozed and
transformed into putrid swamps, which stretched across the entire planet, do
tted with Hutt
pleasure palaces and new industrial districts. The various Hutt clans each claimed their own
chunk of the planet and competed to see who could build the largest eyesore, ruining the entire
planet in record time. When all was said and done, they renamed Evocar to Nal Hutta, which
means “glorious jewel” in Huttese, and they officially claimed it as the capital of the Hutt
Ruling Council and their new adopted homeworld. But the crimes of the Hutts didn’t end
there. Once they ha
d finished defiling Nal Hutta, they turned their attention
to the planet’s largest moon, the one they had exiled the Evocii to. They decided to
transform it into a public capital of sorts, a city-world and major port like Coruscant that
would allow for a constant flow of wealth into the Y’Toub System while keeping outsiders off of
Nal Hutta. To that end, the Hutts enslaved the Evocii and put them to work transforming the moon
into Nar Shaddaa. This work took centuries, as the city was inten
ded to cover the moon from pole
to pole and was built on top of itself in layers, much like Coruscant. The Hutts had enormous
industrial districts and starports built there, and the Hutt clans all claimed parts of the
moon to run their business enterprises from. When all was said and done, the Hutts exiled
the Evocii to Nar Shaddaa’s underworld, where they eventually died out. The moon was
then opened for business, and it quickly became a prominent trading world, the economic heart
of Hutt
Space, just as the Ruling Council had hoped. With Nar Shaddaa’s completion, the Hutt
Cartel as we know it came into being. The Hutts quickly set about expanding Hutt Space again,
reclaiming the territory they had lost during the Hutt Cataclysms, before beginning to expand
their criminal operations into Republic space. In the millennia after the Hutt Cataclysms,
the Hutts began to integrate themselves into the galactic economy, steadily
opening relations with the Republic and setting up cri
minal enterprises on
Republic worlds. For the first time, there began significant trade between the
Republic and Hutt Space, which was facilitated by the blazing of the Ootmian Pabol in 12,000
BBY, a major hyperspace lane that cut through unexplored sectors of the Mid Rim between
Gyndine and Nal Hutta, opening up an easy route between the heartland of the Republic
and the newly-opened ports of Nar Shaddaa. But just a few decades after the blazing of
the Ootmian Pabol, relations with the Re
public changed dramatically. Three thousand years of
Hutt interference in the Republic economy had exacerbated existing problems of corruption, and
by 12,000 BBY, the Republic had hit a breaking point. Corruption in the Republic had grown so
extreme that many felt that drastic measures were needed to save it - and many of these people
rallied behind a new religion called Pius Dea. Pius Dea was built around worship of a
single deity referred to only as the Goddess, who the adherents of the c
ult served by
policing themselves and their communities to purge imperfections and become incorruptible.
They placed great emphasis on the purification of corrupt communities, which they believed was
achieved by identifying and then purging those communities’ irredeemable elements. This religion
originated on Coruscant and became prominent in the politics of the Core, as the veneer of
incorruptibility and piety that the Pius Dea built around themselves was appealing to those tired of
the R
epublic’s corruption. The Pius Dea were also incredibly humanocentric, preaching that “aliens”
were agents of corruption and impurity sullying human society. Many humans in the Republic were
receptive to this abominable message, especially since the Pius Dea held up the Hutts as a prime
example of “alien” corruption, drawing on rampant anti-Hutt sentiment that had been growing ever
since the Hutts began raiding frontier colonies. These tactics won the Pius
Dea enough support that, after the
impeachment and assassination of the
notoriously corrupt Bothan Chancellor Pers’lya, a wealthy merchant and fanatical adherent of the
Pius Dea named Contispex was made the new Supreme Chancellor. Contispex reshaped the Republic into
a Pius Dea theocracy, purging anyone who wasn’t a member of the cult from power and replacing
them with Pius Dea zealots. Then, in 11,965 BBY, he began one of the darkest chapters of
galactic history - the Pius Dea Crusades. Between 11,965 BBY and 10,966 BBY, C
ontispex
and his successors - all of whom took the name Contispex, whether they were a blood relative
or not - waged a total of thirty-four crusades against nonhuman civilizations all across the
galaxy, with the stated goal of purging the galaxy of impurity. Several of these
wars were waged against the Hutts, the Pius Dea’s favorite scapegoat for humanity’s
crimes and failings, causing an unexpected breakdown in Republic-Hutt trade and putting
a damper on the Hutts’ bid for economic power.
The First through Fourth Pius Dea Crusades
were all directed at the Hutts. In the First and Second Crusades, Republic forces advanced down
the Ootmian Pabol to harass the Coreward borders of Hutt Space, while in the Third, they attacked
from the northwest, harassing Nimban and Cyborrea, the homeworlds of notable Hutt vassal species. In
the Fourth Crusade, they attacked Boonta and the worlds of the Si’Klaata Cluster, ravaging Hutt
Space’s northern periphery. The Hutts fought back and largel
y gave as good as they got,
exhausting most of what remained of the Hutt Empire’s military might in the defense of Hutt
Space. Thus, they were able to keep Republic forces out of Hutt Space’s core territories,
and after the Fourth Crusade, the Republic began harassing other nonhuman civilizations that
were easier targets. The Hutts remained the Pius Dea’s favorite punching bag, however, and now
and again, another crusade was directed at Hutt Space. The Thirty-Fourth and final Crusade was th
e
last battle between the Republic and the Hutts, and it saw the Republic attempt to attack Hutt
Space and the Y’Toub System itself from the south. Fortunately for the Hutts and literally everyone
else in the galaxy, the era of the Pius Dea didn’t last. Once the Crusades began, the Jedi Order cut
themselves off from the Republic and spent the Pius Dea’s thousand-year reign helping push back
against the crusaders and building a network of allies and Pius Dea heretics with which to bring
do
wn the cult and retake the Republic. In around 11,000 BBY, as the Pius Dea began to overextend
its fleet and tear itself apart with inquisitions, the Jedi saw their chance to strike. They
allied with the Alsakani, the Caamasi, renunciates within the Republic fleet, the
Duros, the Bureau of Ships and Services, the Herglics, and yes, even the Hutts, and in
10,967 BBY, they went to war against the Pius Dea. Over the course of a year of fighting,
the Pius Dea was dismantled, Contispex XIX was t
hrown into a Caamasi dungeon, and
the Jedi seized control of the Republic, installing Grand Master Biel Ductavis as Supreme
Chancellor while they and their allies did their best to purge the Pius Dea and their speciesism
from power. This effort was eventually successful; the cult died out within a few decades, and
by 10,000 BBY the Republic was mostly back to normal. Hutt-Republic relations went back to where
they had been before the Crusades - they improved, in fact, thanks to the Hutts’ i
nvolvement
in sweeping the Pius Dea into the dustbin of history. Relations were even further improved
by the 275-year-long reign of Blotus the Hutt, who served as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic
sometime between 9000 and 8000 BBY. Blotus broke virtually every Hutt stereotype,
ushering in an age of prosperity for the Republic and becoming one of the most renowned
and respected Supreme Chancellors in history. By 10,000 BBY, the Republic and the Hutts had each
expanded to the point where,
for the first time, they shared a border in the Slice. Republic
exploration and colonization moved elsewhere, and the era of Hutt slaver raids in the Slice
came to an end. Trade picked up on the Ootmian Pabol again, making Nar Shaddaa into a wealthy
and well-known port. And slowly but surely, the Hutts wound their way back into the Republic
economy, picking up where they had left off. In the millennia that followed the Ductavis Period,
the Hutt Cartel achieved its goal of becoming the most
powerful player in the galactic underworld, a
title the Hutts would hold for millennia to come. The next few thousand years of
Hutt history are mostly stagnant, so we’re going to take a quick pause
to look at some maps of Hutt Space. We’ve been referring to Hutt Space a
lot in this video, but the territory of the Hutts and how it was ordered changed
dramatically over the course of their history, and during the time of the Hutt Empire,
Hutt Space was ordered much differently than it was in
the eras we have detailed maps
for. The familiar Imperial-era layout of Hutt Space only really took shape after the Pius Dea
Crusades, which is why we’re covering it now. As another important note, we’d like to quickly
draw a distinction between Hutt Space and the Hutts’ broader sphere of influence. Hutt Space was
sovereign territory of the Hutts and under their direct control, but it was surrounded
by a much larger sphere of influence, where the Hutts de facto controlled systems
and even
entire sectors. Some of this sphere of influence was part of the Republic and
had representation in the Senate but was economically controlled by the Hutts,
while other planets in the Hutt sphere of influence, like Tatooine, were outside the
borders of both the Republic and Hutt Space, but were nonetheless under the rule of Hutt crime
lords. The Hutt sphere of influence changed shape dramatically over the millennia, so we’re only
going to be discussing Hutt Space for now. This is a map of H
utt Space from the Imperial
era, and for the most part, it's good for any point past 10,000 BBY. For most of Republic
history, Hutt Space was slightly larger, since during the first years of the Empire, parts of
its northern reaches were annexed by the Empire. You can see the changes on the map we’re
putting on-screen right now. Just keep in mind that, when we talk about
Hutt Space in the Republic period, everything in the darker shade of green
is being included. With that said, the Imperi
al-era map of Hutt Space
includes all of this territory in detail, just outside the borders of Hutt Space, so we’re
going to be using that map going forward anyway. As you can probably tell just by looking at
this map, Hutt Space was defined by three major hyperspace routes. These were the Ootmian Pabol,
or Outlander’s Road, which connected Hutt Space to the Republic; the Shag Pabol, or Slave Road, which
was the economic backbone of Hutt Space; and the Pabol Hutta, or Glorious Road, which l
ed through
the core of Hutt territory. These three routes converged at the Y’Toub System, home to Nal Hutta
and Nar Shaddaa, which we’ve already covered. The oldest territories of the Hutts, some
of which we’ve already discussed in depth, were located along the Pabol Hutta, specifically
the section of it between Nal Hutta and Sleheyron. Sleheyron, when we last mentioned it,
was one of the Hutts’ treasure-worlds, but in the millennia since, it’s long since
transformed into the war-forge of
the Hutts, a major trade world and industrial hub. As
an economic power player, it was second only to Nar Shaddaa. Located between the two on
the Pabol Hutta was what remained of Varl, and between Varl and Sleheyron were the ancient
conquests of the Hutt Empire, a swath of space that had consistently been under Hutt control
since before the Xim Wars. The most prominent of these territories was the region known as
the Bootana Hutta, the Garden of the Hutts. The Hutt kajidics forbade all outs
iders from
entering Bootana Hutta without express permission, and as a result, this region was a mystery to
most of the galaxy. It was heavily fortified, and competition between Hutt clans was forbidden
within the region’s borders. Bootana Hutta contained the private throneworlds of the Hutt
kajidics, as well as a slew of particularly favored worlds where the Hutts could go to let
their guards down and bask in their wealth and power. The Pabol Hutta led through the heart
of the Bootana Hut
ta, but outsiders traveling the route were stopped at the region’s borders and
rerouted elsewhere. The two main entry-points into the Bootana Hutta were Mulatan and Gos Hutta; both
of these systems swarmed with Hutt warships, a rare sight elsewhere, and outsiders that attempted
to pass them would be interdicted and killed. Most of the charted systems in Bootana Hutta
were clan throneworlds, each designated with the prefix Kor-, as in Kor Desilijic, Kor
Besadii, and Kor Anjiliac. Other world
s in the region included Pybus, which was covered in
strange ruins and considered taboo by the Hutts, while Nar Chuuna and Bootana Shagplan
were both highly exclusive market-worlds, where exotic slaves and artifacts worth more than
whole sectors were bought and sold. There were also Huloon and Langoona, both home to former
slave species that had displeased the Hutts and been all but wiped out for it, with their
homeworlds turned into nature preserves for the Hutts to go on safaris on. The B
ootana Hutta also
contained Saki, the homeworld of the Sakiyans, who, as we mentioned much earlier, the Hutts
mostly left alone. The Sakiyans were also given lordship over several adjacent colonies,
those being Sakidopa, Sakiduba, and Sakifwanna. Many of the systems in the Bootana Hutta were
lush and beautiful, but the regions immediately adjacent to the Bootana Hutta were largely
desolate. Large chunks of territory deep in Hutt Space were almost completely depopulated
by the depredations
of the ancient Hutt Empire, the most infamous of which was the region
due east of the Bootana Hutta - the Cairns. A little-used route called the Dead Road wound
its way through here, connecting a string of lifeless planets that had been plundered by the
Hutts long ago. M’Hanna, Tisht, Saqqar, Usk, and Moralan were all examples of depopulated
systems in the Cairns. The history of some of these worlds was widely known, while others were
a complete mystery. This region also contained a few bac
kwater trade worlds, most notably Elgit
and Nar Haaska, which were rarely visited. At the minor trade-world Ulmatra, the
Dead Road crossed the Pabol Sleheyron, another major hyperspace route that had once
been the northern edge of the Hutt Empire. North of this route was a string of major industrial
worlds and the homes of prominent slave species, many of which we’ve mentioned already. Nimban,
Sionia, and Cyborrea all fell into this category, as did the worlds of the Si’Klaata Cluster,
mos
t prominently Kintan, Vodran, and Klatooine, which we mentioned earlier. During the time of the
Empire, the Si’Klaata Cluster was the northernmost tip of Hutt Space; historically, however, the
territory of the Hutts extended all the way to Boonta. Between Boonta and the Si’Klaata
was a region known as the Periphery, which contained Sriluur, the homeworld of the Weequays.
Adjacent to the Periphery was the Iotran Expanse, centered around Iotra, an independent state known
for its disciplined a
nd regimented populace. During the days of the Old Republic, Hutt Space
also included the spice mining planet Kessel, as well as the Kreetan Narrows, which is that
weird gap in the northwest part of the region. Most of the other parts of Hutt Space were later
acquisitions, brought under Hutt control after the Hutt Cataclysms. As a result, many of these
regions were essentially petty fiefdoms run by favored Hutt vassal species, which were allowed
some degree of independence so long as they p
aid tribute to Nal Hutta. This was especially true
for the Coreward section of Hutt Space. In the northwest, you had the Ilosians, who controlled
many of the Ilosian Spur worlds, as well as Alee, the homeworld of the Vippit. Closer to Nal
Hutta, on the edge of the Oktos Nebula, you had Toydaria and Jilrua, home to the Toydarians
and Jilruans respectively. The Coreward part of Hutt Space also contained the Ootmian Pabol,
which was dotted with minor ports and industrial worlds. Where the Ootm
ian Pabol crossed the
border between Hutt Space and the Republic, the Hutts established Kwenn Space Station as a
clearinghouse for goods heading into Hutt Space. The southern part of Hutt Space was a
similar story to the western part. Several recently-annexed Hutt vassals were located here,
including the Yahk-Tosh of Xolu, who controlled the Pando Spur, and Tysk, the home of the Tysken.
The Hollastin Run is the major hyperspace route through this region, connecting Hutt Space to
the infamo
us shadowport at Syvris. The trade world Hollastin, which gives the route its name,
is one of many trade worlds in this region; others include Nar Kaaga and Affavan. The Hollastin Run
ends at Circumtore, the home of the Shell Hutts, an insular, obscure clan of Hutt warriors
that rejected the kajidic reforms. Lastly, we have the worlds of the Shag Pabol, a corridor
of miserable slave worlds and spice mines. The most important planets along this route were Rorak
V, home to Hutt Space’s larges
t slave market, the industrial hellhole Diyu, and the
spice production colony of Ylesia. Now back to the history. Hutt history was pretty
uneventful after the end of the Pius Dea period; the Hundred-Year Darkness, the birth of the Sith
Empire, and even the Great Hyperspace War between the Sith and the Republic didn’t affect the
Hutts in any significant way. But in 4000 BBY, the history of the Hutts was changed forever
- not by the Sith, or by the Republic, but by a supernova. That year, the
star of the Kyyr System went supernova, and in the process it severed the Ootmian Pabol,
forming a nebula that made the route impassible. Overnight, trade between the Republic and Hutt
Space was cut off. Legitimate trade between the two powers had to find other routes, and
in the meantime, many legitimate trading outposts in Hutt Space withered. Nar Shaddaa,
most notoriously, was ruined by the cataclysm, after which legitimate trade into Hutt Space
went north to Sleheyron. The resultant e
conomic catastrophe saw Nar Shaddaa plunged into
poverty, and in just a matter of decades, it went from being a respectable trading outpost
to the galaxy’s most infamous shadowport, the galactic capital of crime - the Smuggler’s Moon.
The Ootmian Pabol was eventually rerouted, but by that point, the damage was done, and no legitimate
trader wanted to stop on Nar Shaddaa anymore. These developments forced the Hutts to scale back
many of their legitimate business enterprises and lean harder i
nto their illegitimate ones.
This was facilitated by the Old Sith Wars, which took place around this time. The Old
Sith Wars plunged the galaxy into chaos, giving the Hutts the perfect opening to expand
their criminal operations. This period cemented the Hutts’ reputation as gangsters, and it
saw the power and wealth of the Hutts increase dramatically, even as many of their subjects
were ruined by the loss of the Ootmian Pabol. But the Hutts weren’t the only ones to take
advantage of the c
haos to expand their criminal enterprises. While the Republic was busy fighting
the Sith, the Hutts had to contend with the Exchange, another crime syndicate that emerged
as the second-largest player in the galactic underworld. Near the end of the Jedi Civil War,
the Exchange was hit hard when one of its largest branches, based on Taris, was destroyed by a
Sith bombardment, but the organization quickly recovered thanks to the leadership of a reclusive
crime boss named Goto. To the Hutts’ fu
ry, Goto set up shop on Nar Shaddaa, where
the Exchange quickly became very powerful. After the Jedi Civil War, the Republic
was on the verge of collapse due to the sheer damage the Sith Wars had done to
its infrastructure, and as a result, the criminal underworld thrived and
gained considerable power over the Outer Rim. But the Exchange was quicker
to take advantage of this than the Hutts, who increasingly found themselves one step
behind their new rivals. Even on Nar Shaddaa, the Exchang
e kept outmaneuvering the Hutts. They
seized control of much of the Refugee Sector, the former territory of Vogga the Hutt, and
even began hijacking freighters owned by Vogga, which he used to transport fuel from his holdings
on Sleheyron, all but destroying his business. At this time, Nar Shaddaa was experiencing a
flood of refugees from worlds destroyed during the Sith Wars, who both the Hutts and Exchange took
advantage of. Both groups preyed on the refugees, forcing them into terrible l
iving conditions
and kidnapping some to serve as slaves on the spice planets. But the Exchange took control of
this process too, installing an overseer in the Refugee Sector under the Quarren boss Visquis, a
subordinate of Goto’s. The Hutts were infuriated by this situation - Vogga especially.
Vogga became dead-set on killing Goto, whatever the cost. He ultimately bribed
Visquis and one of Goto’s bounty hunters, the mad Wookiee Hanharr, into assassinating
the crime lord on his behalf, hopi
ng to bring the Exchange down from within. But Hanharr
and Visquis were unable to track down Goto, despite their best efforts; even when the crime
lord met with them, it was only ever by hologram. It seemed that Vogga would never
overcome the Exchange - that was, until Goto posted a bounty on Meetra Surik, an
exile then believed to be the last of the Jedi. During the events of the Dark Wars, Surik came to
Nar Shaddaa, igniting a massive war between the Exchange’s bounty hunters and causing
plenty of
trouble for Goto and his cronies. Goto’s agents eventually captured Surik and brought her
to his yacht and mobile base of operations, the Visionary, but Surik escaped and sabotaged
the Visionary’s cloaking device, allowing bounty hunters in orbit to locate and destroy it. This
ended the threat of Goto, and the Exchange was never the same. Over the course of the next few
centuries, it diminished rapidly, and the Hutts were able to move in and take over many of its
holdings and cri
minal operations. Other major criminal syndicates arose to challenge the Hutts
for control of the underworld, most notably the Black Sun, but none were ever as much as a threat
to the Hutts as Goto and the Exchange had been. The Hutts emerged from the first round of the Old
Sith Wars mostly unchanged, but the Galactic Wars three centuries later between the Republic and
the True Sith Empire affected the Hutt Cartel more directly. The Hutts initially stayed neutral
in the conflict between the
Republic and the Sith, standing back and watching while the True
Sith conquered half the galaxy. During the ensuing Cold War between the two powers,
the Hutts acted as brokers between them, tolerating their activities in Hutt Space so
long as the Cartel profited, and agents of both the Republic and the Sith regularly frequented
Nar Shaddaa on intelligence-gathering missions. Occasionally, individual Hutt clans would
get involved with one side or the other, but if caught, they would be disa
vowed by the
Hutt Ruling Council, which remained neutral. After the apparent death of the Sith Emperor
and the subsequent weakening of the Sith Empire, however, the Hutts’ attitudes towards the
Galactic Wars began to shift. Some prominent Hutts believed that the weakening of both the
Republic and the Sith was an opportunity that could allow them to establish a second
Hutt Empire, and they pushed the Hutts to become hostile to both the Republic and the
Sith. Several Hutt clans built up war-
fleets, which were used in the conquest of the planet
Makeb, which Supreme Mogul Toborro the Hutt and Archon Szajin the Hutt hoped would
be the first of many new Hutt conquests. Fortunately for the galaxy, the Conquest
of Makeb was foiled by Republic operatives, who killed Toborro and Szajin and liberated the
planet. This led to a leadership shakeup in the Hutt Cartel, which quickly backtracked
and resumed relations with the Republic. In the end, the Hutt Cartel emerged from
the Galactic W
ars mostly unchanged, though the conflict and the damage it inflicted on the
Republic gave the Hutts yet another opportunity to expand their power base. The Hutts’ sphere
of influence steadily expanded during the wars, and in the Inter-Sith Wars Period that followed,
the Hutts continued to grow more powerful, especially as the Republic became
increasingly gridlocked and corrupt. In 2000 BBY, about fifteen hundred years after the
end of the Galactic Wars, the New Sith Wars began, and over th
e course of a millennium,
they all but destroyed the Republic, forcing it to abandon the Outer Rim, the Rim
as a whole, and eventually, most of the galaxy beyond the Core Worlds and a few major hyperspace
routes. As the New Sith were too disorganized to step in and fill the resultant power vacuum, this
provided the Hutts with yet another opportunity to expand. Over the course of the New Sith Wars,
the Hutts’ sphere of influence swelled massively, and by the conflict’s end, the Hutts had de
facto rule over a huge portion of the Outer Rim. But as you can tell from this map, the Hutts
didn’t rule this enormous swath of territory alone. In most previous conflicts between the
Republic and the Sith, the Hutts had remained neutral, but as the New Sith Wars wore
on, the Republic steadily ceased to exist, and it seemed that the Sith would inevitably
triumph. In previous Sith Wars, the Hutts had been cautious about the prospect of a Sith victory,
but the New Sith were different. They
were split into dozens of different factions that fought
each other as much as the Republic - which is to say that the New Sith were much weaker. As
the Hutts saw it, they were easier to control. This was especially true once the Dark Age of
the Republic began in 1100 BBY. By that point, the Republic had gotten so weak that it was unable
to continue maintaining galactic communications infrastructure, and for a hundred years, the
HoloNet went dark outside of the Core. This made organization
even worse for the New Sith, as they
lacked the infrastructure to establish a parallel communications network, and the Sith splintered
further into petty fiefdoms. But the Hutts had their own communications network, their own
infrastructure, and they offered the Sith access to it in exchange for an alliance. The Hutts
joined forces with the New Sith, propping up many of their warring Dark Lords with communication
services and reliable hyperspace routes. Thus, the Hutts were a major power in
the later stages of the New Sith Wars, both in their own right and as the backbone of
the New Sith. The Hutts’ sphere of influence made up more than half of Sith territory, and the Sith
had several of their academies within this region, including on Ryloth and Gamorr. The Sith
even had academies in Hutt Space itself, on Honoghr and Nar Shaddaa. With that said, the
Hutts kept a degree of distance from the New Sith, seeing them as business partners rather
than their new masters or even prop
er allies. Their arrangement with the
Sith was entirely transactional, and they were sure to avoid direct involvement
in the war. This ended up being a smart move, as the New Sith were ultimately defeated by the
Jedi at the Seventh Battle of Ruusan in 1000 BBY. After the end of the New Sith Wars, the Republic
rapidly rebuilt, and the Hutts went back to their former relationship with it. The Hutts went
unpunished for their support of the New Sith, and trade relations with the Republic
retur
ned to normal within a century. Indeed, the Hutts profited greatly from the New Sith
Wars, and even as many of the Hutts’ client sectors rejoined the Republic, they remained
under de facto Hutt control. The Hutts’ sphere of influence only continued to grow
during the last millennium of the Republic, reaching its largest extent in the years
just before the Clone Wars. This period of galactic history was known as the Golden Age
of the Republic, but it was a golden age for the Hutts as well. T
hey had firm control over
the criminal underworld, considerable power in the legitimate economy, political control
over a quarter of galactic civilization, and massive amounts of influence all across the
Outer Rim, where Republic control was lacking. The Republic largely left the Hutts alone during
this period, and as galactic civilization pushed further and further into the Outer Rim, the
power and influence of the Hutts only grew. This is the map of the Hutts’ sphere of
influence at its
greatest extent in 32 BBY, just prior to the Battle of Naboo. Hutt
Space proper, as we mentioned earlier, was much smaller, but the Hutts had a degree of de
facto control over worlds as Coreward as Gyndine and as Rimward as Teth, from the Corellian Run to
the edges of the Centrality. The Coreward portions of this sphere of influence consisted of Republic
sectors where the Hutts had considerable economic and political power - Gyndine, for example, was
a Republic member world. But in the Oute
r Rim, on worlds like Tatooine, the Hutts’ decrees
were law, and the Republic was nonexistent. The Hutt Cartel’s history during
this period was largely stagnant, following the same patterns it had in previous
peaceful periods, so we’re going to pause here to take a look at some notable Hutts during this
time. For most of the Hutt Cartel’s history, the balance of power between the Hutt clans
was in constant flux, and the makeup of the Ruling Council was constantly changing. But
we actually
know the names and clans of all the Ruling Council members that were around
during the fall of the Republic, so we’re going to talk about them to give you a better
idea of what Hutt operations were usually like. The most powerful Hutt clan during the time of the
films was Clan Desilijic, whose members included Jabba the Hutt. Clan Desilijic had a hand in just
about every criminal enterprise in the galaxy, with their most widespread operations being
in glitterstim production and distribution
, control of podracing circuits, slave trafficking
and kidnapping, extortion, and theft. On the legitimate side, the Desilijics were power
players in transportation infrastructure and mining. They had major holdings on Nal Hutta, Nar
Shaddaa, Kwenn Station, Tatooine, Teth, Ryloth, and Kessel, and their leadership structure was
complicated. Zorba the Hutt, Jabba’s father, was the leader of Clan Desilijic until he was
imprisoned in 22 BBY, following which the clan’s leadership was divided. Ji
liac the Hutt took
over Zorba’s operations, but Jabba the Hutt was more often recognized as the leader of and most
powerful member of Clan Desilijic. The Desilijics actually had two representatives on the Ruling
Council, Jabba and his nephew Gorba the Hutt, giving them a considerable amount of influence
over the Hutt Cartel as a whole. Clan Desilijic’s formal base of operations was the Desilijic
Estates on Nar Shaddaa, but Jabba’s Palace on Tatooine also functioned in this capacity
during
the Clone Wars and reign of the Empire. The second-most powerful clan was the
perpetual rival of Clan Desilijic, Clan Besadii. Gardulla the Hutt was a member
of this clan, and during the Clone Wars, Besadii was represented on the Ruling Council
by Arok the Hutt. Other powerful members of the clan were Aruk the Hutt and his son, Durga, who
had ties to one of the Hutt Cartel’s rivals, the Black Sun. The Besadii operated from Gardulla’s
Palace on Nal Hutta, where they hosted the Ruling Council
during the Clone Wars, and they also
had strongholds on Nar Shaddaa, Ryloth, Socorro, and Ylesia. The Besadii controlled a massive
share of the spice trade through their holdings, with influence from spice mining and production
to smuggling and distribution. They were also major slavers, and Besadii spice plants like
those on Ylesia were typically staffed with massive armies of slaves. On the legitimate side
of things, Clan Besadii had a hand in starliner manufacturing, the legitimate spic
e trade,
and ordinary commercial shipping and storage. One of the most interesting of the ruling families
was Clan Qunaalac, the most militarized of the Hutt clans. The Qunaalac controlled a third
of the Hutts’ warfleet and were responsible for the protection of the Bootana Hutta and
other worlds the Hutts deemed off-limits for outsiders. They saw their military strength
as their greatest asset, and they regularly used the threat of it to achieve greater power
within the Hutt Cartel. Outsi
de of Hutt Space, the Qunaalac was the least well-known of the
ruling families, though they still had their hands in counterfeiting, gambling, construction,
and industry, and they specialized in piracy and protection rackets. But within Hutt Space,
the Qunaalac were very powerful, and they controlled Gos Hutta, Mulatan, and Sleheyron.
They were led and represented on the Ruling Council by Marlo the Hutt, and their largest
fleet group was commanded by Troonol the Hutt. The final clan to be r
epresented on the Ruling
Council was Clan Gorensla, led and represented by Oruba the Hutt before and during the Clone
Wars, and Bossato the Hutt during the Imperial Period. The Gorensla were the galaxy’s foremost
black marketeers, controlling enormous shipping networks and supply lines that spanned the entire
galaxy. They were power players in smuggling, theft, the arms trade, illegal cybernetics,
droid manufacturing, security and bulk shipping, and even the distribution of medical supplies
.
Clan Gorensla had major holdings all over the galaxy, including outside the Hutts’ sphere of
influence. Their most important holdings within Hutt territory were on Nal Hutta, Nar Shaddaa,
Sleheyron, and Formos, and outside of Hutt territory they had major holdings on Terminus,
Llanic, Petabys Station, and Gelgelar Free Port. These four clans weren’t the only ones to
play a significant role in Hutt politics, of course. There were dozens of Hutt clans,
and they varied in terms of age, powe
r, and prestige. All of the clans eligible to be on
the Ruling Council were counted among the Clans of the Ancients, who had been around since before the
Hutt Cataclysms and maintained throneworlds in the Bootana Hutta. But there were also newer clans,
as well as groups of Hutts that weren’t counted as proper clans. The latter group included the
H’uuns, a lower caste of clanless Hutts that were looked down upon by their peers, and the Shell
Hutts, a clan from Circumtore that rejected the ka
jidic reforms and continued to cling to the
old warrior ways. The newer clans, meanwhile, struggled to achieve the power and prestige of the
ruling clans, but some of them were able to corner new sectors of the black market to the point
where they became more powerful than some of the Clans of the Ancients. The opposite happened
to some of the older clans, many of whom had long ago been crushed by their rivals, left with
nothing but their holdings in the Bootana Hutta. For the most part, th
e various Hutt clans operated
as independent entities, and the Hutt Cartel was more of an umbrella term or political entity
than anything else. The Cartel rarely acted as a whole except in matters of Hutt sovereignty,
and a few Hutt clans, such as the Besadii, were known to work with rivals of the Cartel
for their own gain. But for the most part, the Hutt Cartel was unified in that the
Hutts’ xenophobia kept them from working with outsiders against each other, a tenuous kind
of solidarity
that nonetheless worked quite well. Now back to the history, as we finally reach
the era of the films. During the Clone Wars, the Hutts, to nobody’s surprise, were neutral,
maintaining relations with both the Republic and the CIS. But the Hutts weren’t able to sit
the war out completely. Both the Republic and the Confederacy pushed the borders of their
territory into the Hutts’ sphere of influence, with the Confederacy seizing control of several
formerly Hutt-run sectors near Tatooine, whic
h were steadily conquered by the
Republic as the Clone Wars went on. Both the Republic and the Confederacy also
tried to win the Hutts’ favor, and both sides made agreements with various clans to gain
access to Hutt-controlled hyperspace routes. Early in the Clone Wars, the Confederacy allied
with Ziro the Hutt, Jabba’s Coruscant-based uncle, in a bid to turn the Hutt Cartel against the
Republic. To do this, they kidnapped Jabba’s son, Rotta and framed the Republic; the Confederacy
hoped t
his would lead to the Hutts going to war with the Republic, while Ziro planned to profit
by usurping control of Clan Desilijic. But the plot was foiled, and the Hutts instead gave the
Republic access to hyperspace routes through Hutt Space in retaliation. At one point, the
Republic was even allowed to establish a military base in Hutt Space, located on Toydaria. But the
Confederacy had its Hutt allies as well. Though Clan Desilijic gave the Republic preferential
treatment due to the kidnapp
ing of Rotta, their rivals, Clan Besadii, often defied the
Ruling Council to work with the Separatists. In 20 BBY, the Hutt Cartel briefly joined
Darth Maul’s Shadow Collective after Maul and the Death Watch murdered Oruba and threatened
the others on the Ruling Council into joining the alliance. However, the Hutts’ commitment
to the Shadow Collective was never strong, and they split at the first opportunity,
abandoning the alliance after Maul was captured by Darth Sidious. They returned
t
o business-as-usual after this affair, leaving what was left of the Shadow Collective
to be annihilated by General Grievous. After the end of the Clone Wars, the Republic
transformed into the Galactic Empire, a development the Hutts were wary of. The
Empire took a hard stance against the Hutts, as some of its core promises were to crack
down on corruption, establish firm control over the Outer Rim, and promote human authority
across the galaxy, all things that threatened the Hutts. In the f
irst few years of Imperial
rule, during the Reconquest of the Rim, the Empire seemed to make good on its anti-Hutt
stance, as it seized control over the Hutts’ sphere of influence and diminished the size of
Hutt Space proper, annexing the Kessel Sector, Boonta and the Periphery, the Kreetan
Narrows, and a swath of space between. Nonetheless, the Empire stopped short of
attempting to crush the Hutt Cartel, which was allowed to operate semi-independently as an Allied
Region. This was in larg
e part due to the Hutts’ considerable economic power - if they wanted to,
they could bring down the Imperial economy. Thus, the Empire begrudgingly allowed the Hutts to
do their own thing within Hutt Space so long as Imperial forces were allowed to crack down on
rebel activity in the region. The Hutts seemed to acquiesce to the Empire, but in reality,
they were just biding their time. Before long, they had bought out the Imperial governments
of all the sectors within their former sphere of
influence, and they retained their
control over the criminal underworld, which thrived during the Imperial era,
making the Hutt Cartel tremendously powerful. During the Galactic Civil War, the Hutts
officially supported the Empire but were neutral in practice. Some Hutt clans secretly funded the
Rebel Alliance and other anti-Imperial factions, while others were firm supporters of the Empire.
During this period, the Hutts were more concerned with defending their control of the criminal
unde
rworld from two ascendant rival factions, the Zann Consortium and the Black Sun.
They ultimately triumphed over both rivals - the Zann Consortium was destroyed
around the time of the Battle of Yavin, while the Black Sun was crippled after
its leader, Prince Xizor, died in 3 ABY. But just the next year, Jabba the Hutt was
killed by Princess Leia shortly before the Battle of Endor. As the Empire splintered and
the nascent New Republic took its place as the dominant power in the galaxy, the Hu
tt Cartel
descended into chaos, as Clan Desilijic was greatly weakened and the others jockeyed to become
the new leading clan of the Cartel. Clan Besadii, which had taken control of the remains
of the Black Sun, came close to replacing the Desilijics, but their gambit for power
was foiled by the New Republic in 12 ABY. During the Yuuzhan Vong War, the Hutts attempted
to bargain with the Vong to be spared invasion, allying with them and providing them with
slaves and staging grounds for att
acks on the New Republic. But the Vong betrayed the Hutts
and subjected Hutt Space to a brutal invasion, devastating Nal Hutta, Nar Shaddaa, and many
other prominent worlds in the region. However, the Vong found the Hutts tougher targets
than they had expected. The Hutt worlds, for reasons the Hutts kept secret,
were resistant to Vongforming, and the Hutts’ ferocious defense of
their territory cost the Vong dearly. Following the Vong’s defeat, the Hutts reclaimed
Hutt Space and had mostly
recovered within just a few years. Initially, it was expected that they
would lose control of the galactic underworld due to the devastation of Hutt Space, but, while
the Hutts lost a lot of power and influence, they were able to rebuild and regain a foothold
in the underworld. After the Yuuzhan Vong War, the Hutts began a process of remilitarization, having learned the hard way that economic power
wasn’t everything after all. They put their fleet to use in the Second Galactic Civil War, in
which they were part of the Confederation, and they continued to be power players
in the galaxy for years to come. That wraps up our exploration of the history
of the Hutts, one of the most enduringly powerful and influential civilizations in
galactic history. But what do you think? Are there other Star Wars civilizations
you’d like to see this kind of video on? Feel free to post your thoughts in the
comment section below. And as always guys, thank you so much for watching this mammoth of
video and I hope to see you in the next one.
Comments