Dilonexa XXIII

Dilonexa XXIII
Astrographical information
Region	Outer Rim Territories The Slice
Sector	Centrality
System	Dilonexa system
Suns	1
Orbital position	23
Grid square	U-8
Trade routes	Falko Run
Physical information
Class	Terrestrial
Diameter	Nearly 25,000 kilometers
Climate	Temperate
Terrain	Fields Plains Prairies
Surface water	Minimal
Points of interest	Weather-control satellites (in orbit)
Flora	Grain
Fauna	Bovine Fish
Societal information
Demonym	Dilonexan
Major imports	Metal products
Major exports	Agricultural products Foodstuffs

"Whaddya see out there, Mac? A zillion acres of grain crop, that's what."

―Inspector Bernie, to Lando Calrissian on a Dilonexa XXIII prairie

Dilonexa XXIII was a large agriworld located in the Outer Rim Territories' Centrality sector. Each year the planet exported billions of tons of agricultural products, and it served as the Centrality's main producer of foodstuffs, with orbital weather-control satellites helping disperse the local city-sized tornados. Due to Dilonexa XXIII lacking heavy metals in its geological makeup, its inhabitants, the Dilonexicans, developed an allergic reaction to foods that contained high quantities of trace metals.

The planet had been settled by the time of the Galactic Republic, and Jedi Initiate Violia was stationed there as a part of the Jedi Order's AgriCorps. More than a century later, the freighter captain Lando Calrissian attempted to sell a cargo hold of wintenberry jelly, mountain bollem hides, and tinklewood fishing poles on Dilonexa XXIII. While the Dilonexican customs inspector Bernie explained to Calrissian his dim prospects in that endeavor, an agent of the sorcerer Rokur Gepta, who held a vendetta against Calrissian, planted a pair of bombs on the latter's starship, the Millennium Falcon, as it was being refueled. Calrissian, having been invited to play sabacc in the Oseon system, subsequently departed Dilonexa XXIII.

Description

"In the first place, there ain't a body of water on the planet bigger'n a bathtub; we don't like to spare the land."

―Inspector Bernie

Dilonexa XXIII, also referred to simply as Dilonexa, was a terrestrial planet located in the Dilonexa system, a part of the Centrality sector in the Slice portion of the Outer Rim Territories. It was situated on the Falko Run hyperlane, which linked it to the Ringneldia and Ua systems. Dilonexa XXIII occupied the twenty-third orbital position around its giant blue-white sun.

Dilonexa XXIII was a large planet, being nearly twenty-five thousand kilometers in diameter, but its lack of heavy metals kept the Dilonexan surface gravity at a tolerable level. Dilonexa XXIII was a temperate, fertile agriworld with a year-round growing season. Before the planet adopted weather control technology, city-sized tornados would sweep unimpeded around its circumference.

Virtually the entire surface of the planet was covered in fields, plains, and prairies. Among the crops grown on Dilonexa XXIII was grain that, although inedible by the local Dilonexicans, was fed on by herds of the native bovine. The Dilonexican Bernie claimed that there were no reservoirs of surface water on Dilonexa XXIII larger than a bathtub due to the planet's inhabitants not being willing to waste agriculturally viable land. What little water did exist on the surface was home to a type of local fish that, according to Bernie, tasted "terrible" due to them supposedly lacking trace metals.

History

Republic agriworld

"Violia got assigned to the AgriCorps. Maybe I can visit her if Master Unskette has business on Dilonexa."

―Thame Cerulian's annotation in his copy of The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force

Dilonexa XXIII became settled at some point by the time of the reign of the Galactic Republic. In the view of the planet's early settlers, the bountiful resources offered by the planet, which was the only world in the Dilonexa system that could support life, more than outweighed the extreme conditions of the rest of the system. Jedi Initiate Violia was assigned to the AgriCorps branch of the Jedi Order and stationed on Dilonexa XXIII at some point by 103 BBY. Violia's friend, Jedi Padawan Thame Cerulian, later made a margin note in his copy of the guidebook The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force. In the annotation, Cerulian mused that he could visit Violia on Dilonexa XXIII if his Master, Unskette, ever needed to travel to the planet.

Visit by Calrissian

Troubles of a trader

"There's a sixty-five percent import duty on hides, seventy-five percent on fishin' poles an' other recreational goodies, a hundred an' five on poisonous substances like that jelly you're pushin'."

―Inspector Bernie, to Lando Calrissian

Lando Calrissian around the time he visited Dilonexa XXIII

At some point between 3 BBY and 2 BBY, the gambler and freighter captain Lando Calrissian traveled to Dilonexa XXIII aboard his light freighter, the Millennium Falcon, in order to sell a cargo that included several hundred crates of wintenberry jelly, a thousand stacks of mountain bollem hides, and expensive tinklewood fishing poles. However, once on-planet, Calrissian learned from the local customs inspector Bernie that it was highly unlikely he would be able to sell any of those items on Dilonexa XXIII, and that there were high import tariffs on them all. Bernie also delivered to Calrissian a coded chip containing a message from Lob Doluff, the Administrator Senior of the Oseon system.

While Calrissian was conversing with Bernie, a Dilonexan ground crew placed fuel elements into the Millennium Falcon. Unnoticed by either the starship's captain or his copilot, the droid Vuffi Raa, an agent of the sorcerer Rokur Gepta planted a pair of bombs on the vessel. Gepta wished to exact vengeance upon Calrissian for the latter's role in previously foiling the former's plans, and he had also arranged for Doluff to send the message to Calrissian, in which the Administrator Senior invited the gambler to come play the sabacc card game on the asteroid Oseon 6845.

Leaving for the Oseon

"You mean, someone just walked up and attached it back on Dilonexa, while we were refueling […]?"

―Lando Calrissian, to Vuffi Raa

On Dilonexa XXIII, a pair of bombs was placed aboard the Millennium Falcon.

Calrissian, playing back the communique aboard the Falcon, came to believe that he could recoup his losses from interstellar freight hauling at the gaming table and that he only needed a small stake to enter the game at the Oseon system. The captain then requested that Vuffi Raa help him chop up the hides in the cargo hold and send both them and the wintenberry jelly into the ship's waste disposal system in order to then sell its contents to the local farmers. Calrissian remained determined to sell the fishing rods on the planet, although his efforts were ultimately fruitless and he and Vuffi Raa subsequently departed Dilonexa XXIII.

In order to save several hundred credits, Calrissian further waited until the Falcon had left the planet's atmosphere before using his own communications equipment to reply to Doluff's invitation. After one of the bombs planted on the Falcon later exploded while the ship was still in transit to the Oseon system, Calrissian and Vuffi Raa realized that the explosive must have been planted while their vessel was being refueled. The realization prompted the ship's captain to muse on whether the Dilonexicans had discovered that they had acquired from him waste that contained recycled wintenberry jelly.

Inhabitants

"We gotta watch what we eat, us Dilonexicans, that's a fact."

―Inspector Bernie

The colonists of Dilonexa XXIII were known as Dilonexicans. They kept the native bovine for meat and, due to their homeworld's geological makeup, over time developed an allergic reaction to foods that contained increased quantities of trace metals. As a result, there was a hundred-and-five-percent import duty on off-world products that were rich in trace minerals, such as wintenberry jelly, which on one occasion caused in the fourth-generation Dilonexican Shirley a case of the illness known as the gosharooties. A significant portion of the Dilonexican population was also overweight.

Predominantly farmers, the self-consciously agrarian Dilonexicans mostly wore bib overalls and, according to Bernie, rarely spared their time to engage in fishing, leading to a seventy-five-percent import tax on fishing poles and other equipment intended for recreational activities. Additionally, the inhabitants of the planet had access to abundant amounts of leather obtained from bovine hides, and it was reflected in a sixty-five-percent import duty on hides from off-world.

Dilonexa XXIII served as the breadbasket of the Centrality.

There was also an import fee of thirteen-hundred-and-fifty credits for receiving interstellar messages and a penalty of two thousand credits for not receiving them, which, according to Bernie, stemmed from the locals' belief that one should be content with what was available on just one planet and that it was not "neat" to leave such messages undelivered, respectively. Conversely, the Dilonexicans were prepared to pay generously for the contents of a starship's waste-cycling system.

Nearly everything made out metal had to be imported on Dilonexa XXIII, but in return, each year the world exported billions of tons of agricultural products, serving as the chief supplier of foodstuffs for the Centrality and also producing plastics and fuels. Most of the work on Dilonexa XXIII was done by agrirobots, and the locals valued droids higher than wageworkers due to the former being able to work tirelessly without any complaints. Dilonexa XXIII eventually became a rich world and its inhabitants acquired a taste for the finer things in life. Lando Calrissian subsequently came to speculate that the mere existence of a scheduled tax on fishing poles implied that there was indeed a small market for such items on the planet—although Calrissian was ultimately unsuccessful in selling them.

Locations

"Lookie here! when's the last time you saw a genuine leather awning? You got it—over on that building right there."

―Inspector Bernie, to Lando Calrissian

Dilonexa XXIII housed a building with a leather awning as well as a ferrocrete apron on which a light freighter like the Millennium Falcon could land. Gigantic weather-control satellites had been installed in the planet's orbit. They were equipped with potent, energy-based proprietary tornado disruptors. The satellites' weaponry was also used to deter both would-be smugglers and individuals attempting to leave the planet with unpaid bills.

Behind the scenes

Dilonexa XXIII was introduced in Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon, the 1983 second entry in The Lando Calrissian Adventures trilogy of novels by L. Neil Smith. Its name was misspelled as "Dilonexia XXIII" in the Wizards of the Coast roleplaying game source article "A Campaign Guide to the Centrality," which was authored by Michael Kogge and was published in Star Wars Gamer 5 on July 24, 2001. The 2009 reference book The Essential Atlas, authored by Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry, introduced a shortened version of the planet's name and placed it in grid square U-8.

Appearances

• Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon (First appearance)

Sources

• "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, How I Wonder Where We Are" — Voyages SF 13
• Star Wars Encyclopedia
• The Essential Guide to Droids
• "A Campaign Guide to the Centrality" — Star Wars Gamer 5 (as Dilonexia XXIII)
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• The Essential Atlas
• The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force
• The Essential Reader's Companion

Notes and references

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