Melodie

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Melodies were a humanoid water-based species native to Yavin 8. The species lived deep within the purple mountains of their homeworld, most notably Sistra Mountain.

Biology and appearance

Melodies were hatched from eggs and started life on land. These young Melodies would live around the underground freshwater lakes deep within the caverns and inlets of the moon's equatorial mountain ranges until they reached the age of 20, when they were to complete the change into an adult Melodie (also known as an Elder) in an event called the Changing Ceremony.^[1]

Prior to this, young Melodies who had not yet changed would care for the infant Melodies. This involved gathering trico which was then made into a paste to feed the infant Melodies until they were old enough to eat the silver-backed fish that lived in the pools within the mountain. Young Melodies lived a dangerous life since they were often preyed upon by numerous predators, including the bird-like avrils, the rodent-like raiths, the serpentine reels, and the spidery purellas.^[1]

During the Changing Ceremony, these Melodies (also known as Changelings) would be taken down a shallow cove to begin their transformation from land-dweller to water-breather. This shallow cove was the only safe place the Ceremony could take place. It was covered in a blue-green algae which created oxygen through photosynthesis for the Changelings to breathe.^[1]

This process could take weeks, making the Changelings vulnerable to attacks from Yavin 8's predators. Thus, they were guarded by their fellow Melodies who had not changed. During the ceremony, a Changeling's legs would grow together into a single finned tail, and they would also grow gills for breathing underwater. When this change had completed, making them Elders, the Melodie would retreat to deep underground lakes within the mountains where they would live in for the rest of their adult lives. Elders were able to surface for limited amounts of time, which they use to communicate with their young. However, this did not apply to the oldest Melodies, who were not able to surface at all.^[1]

History

The Melodies originated on the arid, tundra moon of Yavin 8, one of the gas giant Yavin's three habitable moons with the others being Yavin 4 and Yavin 13. They were an amphibious species that lived in the rivers and lakes of the moon's purple mountains.^[1]^[2] Certain xenobiologists in later years suspected that the Melodies as well as the native predators on their homeworld may have been products of Sith alchemy.^[3]

File:Melodie AE.png

A group of Melodie.

In 3997 BBY, during the Sith Lord Exar Kun's reign over the Massassi of Yavin 4, he imprisoned their children in a spherical dark side device known as the Golden Globe, for the purpose of both controlling the Massassi and to drain the life energies of its trapped captives. The desperate Massassi parents came to Yavin 8 to seek help and met the children of the Melodies. The children took them to their Elders, but they could offer no help since they were unable to leave the waters.^[1]

Thus, the Massassi engraved messages in the rocks and caves of Yavin 8 hoping so that somebody would read them some day and come to their aid. However, these messages were written in the Massassi tongue, which made it difficult for non-speakers to understand the text. Worse, the Massassi were wiped out in 3996 BBY during the Jedi/Republic asssault on the jungle moon. This piece of history would only be preserved in the form of legends by storytellers known as "Keeper of Legends".^[1]

Millennia later, sometime in 0 BBY, the Rodian Suz Tanwa discovered the species during a trip in the Yavin system, but did not reveal their existence to the galaxy, fearing that the Galactic Empire would enslave them.^[4] In 22 ABY, Master Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 discovered the Melodies and also allowed a Force-sensitive member of the species named Lyric to study at the Praxeum. Her parents allowed her to go because of the dangerous conditions of their homeworld. Later, when Lyric returned to Yavin 8 to undergo the Changing Ceremony on that same, Jedi trainees Anakin Solo and Tahiri Veila escorted Lyric to her homeworld to undergo the Changing Ceremony. During their trip, they fell under attack by native carnivores including an avril, a reel, a purella, and a number of raiths, though they managed to fight them off.^[1]

It was also from the Keeper of Legends Aragon that Anakin and Tahiri learned about the existence of the ancient Massassi carvings. They discovered these carvings in a cave. During their trip on Yavin 8, Anakin and Tahiri also met Sannah, whom they discovered to be Force-sensitive and took her with them during their home trip to Yavin 4. Later, Sannah assisted them in translating the ancient Massassi carvings.^[1] They then learned of the origins of the Golden Globe and how to defeat it.^[5]

Shortly after the Yuuzhan Vong captured the Jedi Praxeum, the Yuuzhan Vong presumably took the moon. The extragalactic invaders also unleashed deadly Jedi-hunting voxyn on the moon. Among their victims were Lyric.^[6] The fate of the species following the Yuuzhan Vong War is currently unknown, although Sannah was present at the Conclave on Zonama Sekot in 30 ABY.^[7]