Their ways were consigned in their ancient and most sacred book, the Mola Oktaro. They used to paint treblixes, patterns of golden triangles, across their foreheads. They had a language of their own. According to Mayvlin Trillick, Oktarians had a cultural fear of heights due to the largely flat topography of Oktaro.
During the Clone Wars, Oktaro was invaded by the droid armies of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and became a battleground when the clone troopers of the Galactic Republic arrived. After what later history books described as a mere skirmish, the droid armies were defeated, and the heroes of the Republic left the planet.
Although many Oktarians started rebuilding their cities and their culture, many others were too angry and chose to leave their homeworld instead. Those who stayed did succeed; the central library of the capital New Tobura, which had been bombed during the war, rose from its ashes.
Three years after the Republic victory, troopers came back to Oktaro. However, the Republic had evolved into the authoritarian Galactic Empire. Not realizing that those "stormtroopers" were not their liberators of yore, the Oktarians welcomed them with open arms. Eventually, the citizens of Oktaro understood that the Empire had come to occupy the planet. Their leaders were no longer in charge, their planet was renamed G3-477, and the citizens were forced to dig the toxic sands of their deserts to build Imperial bases and mining operations. Because their hopes of rebuilding had been in vain, the Oktarians came to call the three years between the defeat of the Confederacy and the arrival of the Empire "Dennig-Far," which meant "False Hope" in Oktarian.